1921-03-29

PRIVATE BILLS FIRST READINGS

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Bill No. 43, to incorporate Standard Insurance Company.-Mr. Mowat.
Bill No. 44, respecting the Western Dominion Railway Company.-Mr. Morphy.

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Bill No. 7, respecting The Montreal, Ottawa and Georgian Bay Canal Company -Mr. Fripp.
Bill No. 21, respecting The Oshawa Railway Company.-Mr. Smith.
Bill No. 22, respecting The Thousand Islands Railway Company.-Mr. Smith.
Bill No. 25, respecting The Kettle Valley Railway Company.-Mr. Green.
Bill No. 26, respecting The Manitoba and North Western Railway Company of Canada.-Mr. Lang.
Bill No. 27, respecting The Quebec Central Railway Company.-Mr. Beland.
Bill No. 29, respecting The Essex Terminal Railway Company.-Mr. Kennedy (Essex North).
Bill No. 30, respecting The Ottawa, Northern and Western Railway Company. -Mr. Devlin.

Bill No. 20, to incorporate The Mayo Valley Railway, Limited.-Mr. Thompson (Yukon).
Bill No. 4, respecting The Dominion Life Assurance Company.-Mr. Euler.
Bill No. 5, to incorporate Fidelity Company of Canada; title changed to " An Act to incorporate Fidelity Insurance Company of Canada," and when the French language is used to designate the company, the equivalent of the said name shall be " La Com-pagnie d'Assurance Fidelite du Canada." -Mr. Mowat.

Right Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Prime Minister) :: Mr. Speaker, I beg to lay on the Table a copy of the Trade Agreement between France and Canada,-the original, which is in French, as well as the translation in English.


Mr. FIELDING:: Is the document
printed?


Arthur Meighen: No; it is typewritten.


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: May we expect to receive printed copies?


Arthur Meighen: Printed copies will be available in due course. I have just received this from the Deputy Minister of Trade and Commerce.



PORT OF QUEBEC


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' On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. C. G. POWER (Quebec South):: Before the Orders of the Day are called, may I ask the Minister of Marine (Mr. Ballantyne), whether he has received any complaints from the merchants of Quebec, or any person else on their behalf, with regard to discriminatory action against the port of Quebec by the Canadian Government Merchant Marine? If so, does he intend to take these complaints into consideration?


Mr. SPEAKER:: It strikes me that this question is not of such a character as warrants its being put upon the Orders of the Day. It should be placed on the Order Paper in the usual manner. While it is undoubtedly important, it is very local in its nature and does not affect the country at large.


Charles Gavan Power: I submit, Mr. Speaker, that it may be a question of public policy. It may be a question as to whether or not the Canadian Government Merchant Marine is fulfilling the duties for which it was created.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: It may involve a question of policy, but the subject is not of sufficient urgency to be brought up on the Orders of the Day; notice should be given and the question asked in the ordinary way.


Charles Gavan Power: With all due deference to the Chair, I submit that the matter is of considerable urgency. Navigation is about to open, and it i s of great importance to the merchants and others in the seaports of Canada to ascertain how they stand in this matter.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: If the minister desires to answer the question now, I will offer no opposition.


Hon. C. C. BALLANTYNE (Minister of Marine):: So far as my knowledge goes,
I may inform the hon. member that no communications of any kind have reached the Department of Marine charging any discrimination, on the part of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine, against the port in question. However, I will look into the matter, and if it transpires that any correspondence has reached the department, I shall be glad to inform the hon. gentleman accordingly.



TRADE WITH WEST INDIES

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On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. J. A. ROBB (Chateauguay-Hunting-don) :: Recently in the Canadian press
'there has been an announcement that Bermuda has rejected the trade arrangement between Canada and the West Indies, and it has been intimated that this action might affect the agreement with the other Islands. Has the Prime Minister any statement to make regarding the matter?


Arthur Meighen: I cannot speak with finality,
but from a conversation I had with the Minister of Trade and Commerce, (Sir George Foster), I believe Bermuda has rejected the arrangement so far as it concerns herself. That, however, does not affect the validity of the agreement as * respects the other Islands. The attention of the Minister of Trade and Commerce has been drawn to the matter, and he will speak upon it tomorrow.
mmt



THE INCOME TAX

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On the Orders of the Day:
Hon. RODOLPHE LEMIEUX (Maison-neuve-Gaspe):: As notices are being sent
out, or are about to be sent out, under the Income Tax Act, and as people are rather afraid that mistakes may be made in the computation of the tax, by which they may be liable to severe penalties, it has been suggested to me by several parties interested that the payment of the tax be made as heretofore,-that is, a statement should be made by the person liable and the amount of tax should be fixed by the Commissioner of Taxation. Many people are somewhat uneasy under this new regulation, and I should like the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance to consider the matter seriously before applying the penalty clauses.


Arthur Meighen: The Minister of Finance (Sir
Henry Drayton) is, unfortunately absent, being engaged this afternoon addressing an audience in the city. However, I feel safe in intimating-though nothing in the nature of a definite announcement can be made until his return

that the regulations have been under reconsideration, and I believe that the Minister of Finance has a method which he thinks of proposing that will not be open to objections of the nature suggested by the hon. member. I will call his attention to the matter.


Mr. BELAND:: Last year an extension
was granted until the last day of April for the handing in of the report. Is it the intention of the Government similarly to extend the time this year?


Arthur Meighen: I cannot give an
answer to the question, as I am not familiar with the subject. I am informed by the Minister of Public Works (Mr. McCurdy) however, that that is the law to-day.



SUPPLY-CANADIAN GOVERNMENT MERCHANT MARINE GENERAL STATEMENT BY THE MINISTER

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Hon. C. C. BALLANTYNE (Minister of Marine and Fisheries) moved that the House go into Committee of Supply.
He said: Before this motion carries, I desire to place before hon. members the particulars concerning the operations of the Canadian Government merchant ships during the fiscal year ended December 31, 1920. I thought it well to do so at this time in order that hon. members may be in possession of the facts. Hon. members

will be in a better position, after a perusal of the Hansard report of my remarks, to ask whatever questions they may deem proper when the House is again in Committee of Supply. If it is agreeable to hon. members, I would suggest at the outset that they be good enough to allow me to finish without interruption whatever I have to say. When we are in Committee of Supply I will, to the very best of my ability, and with the greatest pleasure, give the fullest information to hon. members regarding the operations of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine.
Mr. Speaker, when, on April 4, 1918, I had the honour of announcing to Parliament the Government's shipbuilding programme, I gave the reasons which impelled us to enter upon such an undertaking. Although it may be a repetition of what I then said, I shall now briefly restate the reasons which caused the Government to create a Canadian Government merchant marine. During the spring of 1918 the war was at its most critical period, and losses in shipping tonnage throughout the world were very grave. Indeed, so serious was the situation at that particular time that it amounted to a race between the enemy submarines and the shipbuilding yards of the British Empire-in the one case to destroy allied tonnage as rapidly as possible, and in the other case to make good, as far as possible, that loss of tonnage. In the first place, therefore, this Government thought it wise to enter upon shipbuilding as a war measure. Before that decision was reached the British Government was utilizing our steel shipbuilding yards throughout the Dominion for the construction of steel ships for its own purposes, which ships were under British registry, the Canadian Government providing the necessary funds. However, as these vessels were being built for the Mother Land, and under British registry, the moment they were ready to be put into commission they would necessarily pass into the possession of the British Government to be utilized by it in the way it might deem best. The Dominion Government, therefore, came to the conclusion, and its decision received the unanimous approval of the House at that time, that it would be better for Canada in the national interests, seeing that she was financing the construction of these ships that were being built for the British Government, that we should build ships under Canadian registry and for the benefit of the Canadian people. Accordingly our first reason for entering upon the shipbuilding

programme at that time was the imperative need of providing shipping to make up the immense losses that were occurring almost hourly during the most critical period of the war. The second reason for embarking upon this policy was that the Government owned a large system of railways amounting to about 18,000 miles, and which will be increased to something like 23,000 miles if the acquisition of the Grand Trunk goes into effect. Having this vast system of national railways, the Government deemed it necessary to complete the chain of transportation by providing ships to carry the cargoes that would be transported over this immense railway system to our seaports for exportation. The third, but by no means the least important, reason for the construction of these ships was to enable Canada to expand- her export trade; and as I proceed with my remarks hon. members will see that the Canadian Government Merchant Marine has performed a very great national work in opening up' new trade routes and in helping to develop and expand the export trade of the Dominion. At this stage permit me to say, Mr. Speaker, that no new contracts for ships have been let since the year 1919. I have noticed from time to time that the press of Canada, and occasionally some gentlemen engaged in banking-the presidents of our large financial institutions

have called upon the Government not to construct any more ships, expressing the opinion that the time had arrived when shipbuilding by the Government in this country ought to cease. I find no fault with these financial gentlemen except to say that when they made such appeals they seemingly were not aware that the Government had not placed any new contracts for the construction of ships since the year 1919, but was simply carrying to completion its original shipbuilding programme. Some of those who made this demand were of the opinion that when the armistice was signed the Canadian Government should not have given any more contracts for ships. Now, I explained to the House last year, and I repeat the statement, that the Government's reason for continuing the shipbuilding programme was the serious labour conditions that existed throughout Canada at the time of the signing of the armistice, and which conditions prevailed through the year 1919. Thousands of skilled and unskilled workmen were out of employment in the Dominion; and as, at that time, hundreds of thousands of our brave men were returning from the front, the Government 81
felt that it was its plain duty, to carry on shipbuilding and to give employment not only to the men then needed in the industry, but to others who were likely to require work, and especially the returned soldiers-that from the point of view of making provision for unemployment it would be a wise policy for the Government to continue its shipbuilding programme. I hope the House will pardon me if, from this point, I adhere somewhat more closely to my notes in order to afford hon. gentlemen that detailed statistical information which is so imperatively necessary in connection with this important matter.
The year 1920, as was generally anticipated, proved unsatisfactory to shipping interests the world over, more especially from the point of view of net earnings. The loss of tonnage that had been sustained during the war was more than overtaken, with the result that there had been throughout the year a surplus of available tonnage. The world tonnage at the commencement of the war was about 49,000,000 tons. The available world tonnage at present is about 65,000,000 tons.
The costs of operation that had reached abnormally high proportions during the war and to which reference will be made later, continued throughout the year. That taken in conjunction with the substantial decline in freight rates from those of the previous year, added very materially to the difficulties with which shipowners had to cope. During the year there was a very severe decline in freight rates from United Kingdom ports over well defined routes, such as those to India and South America. While the decline in trans-Atlantic rates to United Kingdom ports was not so acute, it was nevertheless very substantial, and had a marked effect on the earnings of vessels. For instance there has been a decline of 65 per cent in the rate on flour; on grain 61 per cent; on deals 55 per cent; on cereals 48 per cent; and on apples 41 per cent. On cargoes from Canadian ports to South American ports decreases have averaged from 17 per cent to 50 per cent. On cargoes to India there has been a decline of 20 per cent in the comparatively short time since the route was established. From British Columbia ports to Australia there has been a steady decline averaging between 15 per cent and 35 per cent. On the one article of lumber the decline over the rate for 1919 was, during 1920, at least 25 per cent.
Over all the principal trade routes, both transatlantic and transpacific, there has been a corresponding decline in freight
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rates, and while shipping companies during that time had to contend with the highest operating costs ever known, they were also faced with the problem of smaller cargo offerings than had been the case for many-years. As an indication of the enormous extent to which operating costs have increased in recent years, I would point out that the percentage of increases in the prices paid for the principal requirements as between the years 1914 and 1920 has been approximately as follows:
Per cent
Coal	 133
Provisions	 100
Oils, etc	 100
Paints	 125
Rope	 100
General deck and engine stores.. 100 Wages	 300
So acute is the depression in shipping that for some considerable time there have been lying idle in different ports of the world a very large number of British ships, and at the present time there are lying idle 536 steel steamers of United States registry in addition to nearly 300 wooden vessels of the same registry. Under all these unusual conditions the Canadian Government Merchant Marine may well be considered to have had a very satisfactory year, the results of which I shall place in more detail before the House.
The next matter of interest I wish to bring before the House is the number of ships that the Government own. When I made my statement .in connection with the shipbuilding programme to the House last session there were 24 vessels completed and in commission as follows:
7	ships of 8,300 tons each.
4 ships of 5,100 tons each.
4 ships of 4,500 tons each.
8	ships of 3,500 to 3,900 tons each.
1	ship of 2,800 tons.
The approximate tonnage of these vessels is 129,000 tons.
Since that time 23 additional vessels have been completed and put in commission as follows:
9	ships of 8,300 tons each.
4 ships of 5,100 tons each.
4 ships of 4,500 tons each.
4 ships of 3,500 to 3,900 tons each.
2	ships of 2,800 tons each.
These have an approximate deadweight tonnage of 131,000 tons.
There are therefore in commission at the present time 47 vessels of the following types:

16 ships of 8,300 tons each.
8 ships of 5,100 tons each.
8	ships of 4,500 tons each.
12 ships of 3,500 to 3,900 tons each.
3	ships of 2,800 tons each, of an approximate deadweight tonnage of 259,783 tons.
There remain to be completed 16 ships of the following types, viz:
2	ships of 10,500 tons each.
9	ships of 8,300 tons each.
5 ships of 3,500 to 3,900 tons each.
These will have a deadweight tonnage approximating 114,470 tons.
The entire programme when completed will comprise 63 ships of the following types:
2	ships of 25 ships of
8 ships of 8 ships of 17 ships of
3	ships of
10,500	tons each.
8,300 tons each.
5,100 tons each.
4.500	tons each.
3.500	to 3,900 tons each. 2,800 tons each .
The approximate deadweight tonnage of all of those vessels when completed will be 374,254 tons.
Seven of these vessels are being equipped with oil fuel installation and thirteen of them will be provided with refrigeration spaces.
It will be recalled, Sir, that for the purpose of the shipbuilding programme the sum of $20,000,000 was voted for the present fiscal year. Of that amount there has been expended up to the present $14,684,513.99. It is estimated that before the end of the fiscal year a further amount of $650,000 will be expended, making a total expenditure for the year of $15,334,513.99. It therefore follows that, of the amount of $8,000,000 which will be required to complete the programme, $4,665,496.01 is a revote.
Now I come to the comparative cost of construction. The average cost of constructing all the vessels under the Government shipbuilding programme figures out at $191.95 per deadweight ton. The average cost of the vessels constructed by the United States Shipbuilding Board has been stated in a recent official communication to be about $215.00 per deadweight ton. So that on a much smaller programme our cost compares very favourably indeed with the cost of construction of similar steel vessels by our,friends to the south, being nearly $24 per ton less than theirs.
With regard to the costs of operation, it will be found that a comparison of Canadian Government wage costs with like costs

of operating similar ships by Great Britain, the United States, Japan, Norway and France, is as follows:
The monthly wage cost of a Canadian Government merchant marine ship of 8,100 tons deadweight which .carries a crew of 41, including 2 boys, is $3,705. Published figures from an authentic source-(bulletin issued by Dow, Jones & Co., of New York) show the monthly wage cost of foreign ships of similar tonnage as being, for British ships $3,924; American, $5,315; Norwegian, $3,378; and Japanese, $2,869.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I would like to give the House particulars of the number of officers and men employed on our Government ships at the end of the last calendar year. All told the number was 1,674, comprising:		
Masters			
Officers 			
Engineers 			
Ordinary seamen,	firemen,	
stewards, etc. ..		1,305	
Total 			
Total number Canadian	by birth or i	adoption-		
Masters 			 30	
Officers 			
Engineers 			
Ordinary seamen,	firemen,	
stewards, etc. . .		 652	
	-	868
Total number British-*		
Masters 			
Officers 			
Engineers 			 54	
Ordinary seamen,	firemen,	
stewards, etc. . ..		 653	
	-	806
Total	1,674
I think it will interest the House also to he given some information in regard to the routes upon which these ships are plying. They are as follows:
Fortnightly sailings Canada to Liverpool.
Fortnightly sailings Canada to London.
Fortnightly sailings Canada to Barbados, Trinidad and Demerara.
Three-weekly sailings Canada to Glasgow.
Three-weekly sailings Canada to Nassau, Kingston and Belize.
Three-weekly sailings Canada to St. John's, Newfoundland, via Charlottetown, P.E.I.
81i
Monthly sailings Canada to Cardiff and Swansea.
Monthly sailings Canada to Pernambuco, Santos, Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, and Buenos Aires.
Monthly sailings Canada to Havana, Cuba.
Monthly sailings Canada to Liverpool, via Sydney, C.B.
Monthly sailings Canada to Mediterranean, Straits Settlements, Java and India.
Monthly sailings Canada to Australia and New Zealand.
Monthly sailings Vancouver to Straits Settlements, Java and India.
Monthly sailings Vancouver to Australia (direct).
Monthly sailings Vancouver to New Zealand (direct).
During the year 1920 new routes have been opened up and allocations of steamers made as follows:
(1)	Montreal-Glasgow service. Established January 23, 1920: Sailings every three weeks:	Allotted three 4,300-ton
steamers.
(2)	Vancouver-Australia and New Zealand service. Established February 23, 1920: Monthly sailings: Allotted five 8,100-ton steamers: These steamers call, East and West bound, at Wellington, Auckland, Sydney and Melbourne.
(3)	Montreal-Cardiff and Swansea service. Esablished July 3, 1920: Monthly sailings: Allotted three 4,300-ton steamers.
(4)	Montreal-India and the Orient service. Established September 11, 1920: Sailings every two months: Allotted two 8,100-ton steamers,
(5)	Halifax and St. John-Nassau, Kingston and Belize service. Established December 8, 1920: Three-weekly sailings: Allotted two 5,100-ton steamers.
In accordance with the trade agreement concluded during the year with the British West Indies it was decided to equip two of the 5,100-ton vessels then under construction with passenger accommodation, in consequence of which a regular service every three weeks has been established between Canada and the Bahamas, Jamaica and British Honduras. The delegates at the very important conference held in this city in June of last year-I refer to the conference in Ottawa held with a view to negotiating a preferential trade agreement between Canada and the West Indies- particularly the delegates from the Bahamas, Jamaica and British Honduras, claimed that they were very short indeed
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of passenger services. I informed them, as your Minister of Marine, that the Government did not own or intend to build any passenger ships, but the delegates were very much interested in the matter and continued their pressure upon me and the other representatives of the Government, requesting us to equip, if possible, some of our freight ships with a limited passenger accommodation. I pointed out to them that I did not think it would pay to equip freight ships with a limited passenger accommodation and to operate them on such a long route as that of Halifax to the Bahamas, Jamaica and British Honduras and back over the same route in the winter, and from Montreal in the summer. The representatives from the West Indies then said that if it did not pay, the countries they represented would each contribute a certain amount. I am sorry I have not before me the amount that each of the Islands stipulated in the agreement that it would be willing to pay, but if my memory serves me correctly the amount in all would be about £13,000. We cannot tell at the present time whether or not this new route will pay, but judging from one or two voyages that the ships have made, it looks as if it might break even. I would not, however, he prepared to make that as a positive statement; we shall have to wait until the end of the fiscal year. While the accommodation provided is but for twenty-six cabin, passengers on each vessel, it is of such an excellent character that it attracts a full passenger list for each sailing. Full cargoes also have been carried, and it is confidently expected that the regularity and character of the service generally will build up a profitable business in the interchange of the products of these British possessions and Canada. The first vessel on this route sailed from Halifax on January 25 last, with a full complement of passengers and a general cargo of flour, potatoes, oats, cement and general merchandise.
The House and the country generally, and the exporters of Canada in particular, will he interested to know what these ships are capable of doing in the way of expanding Canada's export trade. In this connection, Sir, I regret to have to express my dissappointment with the efforts so far made by the Canadian manufacturer and exporter. These ships have been equipped with one or two extra passenger cabins in order that Canadian business men might either go themselves to these British possessions and foreign countries, or send

their commercial agents. While the showing of exports is not a bad one so far, I would like again to make an urgent appeal to the manufacturers and business men of Canada to reach out more aggressively for export trade. I said last year, and I say it again, that if Canada is to wipe out her immense war debt within a reasonable time, Canadians must not only look after the home trade but reach out aggressively for foreign markets. We have provided this magnificent fleet of freight ships and these new routes have been opened up. No, old-established steamship company would take the chance that the Government ships have taken in opening up one new route after another; these old companies would naturally hesitate and first try to ascertain whether or not it would be profitable to put ships on the various new routes to which I have referred. But these ships are Canadian ships, built in the national interest. The Government has never attempted, and, I hope never will attempt, to interfere in the management of these ships; all I have said to the management as the responsible minister was, that they should make all the money they could, at the same time keeping the national interest in mind and assisting the Canadian people in every possible way to export the products of fishery, forest, farm, mine, and factory. Canadians, therefore, have reason to be proud that they possess this immense fleet of new ships going to all corners of the world, and making a very creditable showing, to which I shall refer in a moment. But the great feature of a Canadian merchant marine is the fact that this country can say:	We want
this ship, or so many ships, run on whichever route we think there is a possibility of Canada obtaining trade and thus expanding her export business.
The principal exports of Canadian products by the vessels of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine have been:
From Atlantic ports to Malta, Barcelona, India, Ceylon and Java.
From Atlantic ports to Liverpool, London, Glasgow, Cardiff and Swansea.
From Atlantic ports to the British West Indies, Cuba and South America.
To Australia from Vancouver.
To Newfoundland from Montreal and Halifax.
The exports to Malta, Barcelona, India, Ceylon and Java consisted of iron and steel products, glass, furniture, agricultural implements, rubber goods, automobiles, grain, flour, etc.

To United Kingdom ports the exports have been grain, flour, cereals, canned goods, bacon, cheese, apples, pulp, paper, lumber, iron and steel, machinery, implements, etc.
To the British West Indies the products exported have been cement, flour, trunks, iron and steel products, paper, machinery, furniture, etc.
To South America the exports have been pulp and paper, malt, agricultural implements, dried fish, steel products, lumber, etc.
To Cuba exports have consisted mainly of pulp and paper, malt, flour, hay, lumber, fish, potatoes, whiskey, oats and cement.
To Australia there have been exported from British Columbia ports, lumber, paper, cement, fish, machinery, rubber goods, etc.
From Montreal and Halifax to Newfoundland, there have been exported flour, hay, oats, paper, cheese, cement, etc.
The importance of the merchant marine to Canadian trade cannot be too strongly emphasized. Canadian goods to the value of over $50,000,000 have been transported during the year in Canadian-built ships, each named vessel with its prefix "Canadian" being the best advertisement for Canada in the principal markets of the world.
I have now arrived at what, I presume, will be the most interesting part of my statement this afternoon, and that is: What results have been obtained from the operation of these ships during the past calendar year? I will, therefore, proceed at once to give this information to the House.
['I think we would make greater progress if the Committee rose now.\nProgress reported.\nOn the motion of Right Hon. Mr. Meighen,. the House adjourned at 2.12 a.m.\nWednesday.\nWednesday, March 30, 1921.']
William Stevens Fielding: Is the statement for the calendar year or for the fiscal year?
Net earnings on voyages closed sinoe January applicable to 1920	 183,000 00
Total net earnings.. ..	$781,460 09
I wish to point out that these net earnings are before providing for interest, and the above amount of net earnings, $781,460.09 is equal to 2.35 per cent interest on notes given to the Government for the full cost of the ships.


Mr. CAHILL:: What does the Government pay for the money?
. Mr. BALLANTYNE: As my hon. friend knows, the rate of interest varies, depending on the time at which loans are made. I might explain that when these Government ships are ready to be put into commission, they are turned over to the operating company and charged to that operating company at cost price, which I gave a few moments ago as $191.95 per ton dead weight. The operating company gives the Dominion Government its promissory notes for these ships.
The following is a statement of the assets and liabiliities:
Canadian Government Merchant Marine Limited and Subsidiary Companies
Consolidated Balance Sheet as at 31st December 1920
Assets
Fixed Assets-
Vessels at cost..$50,005,892.71 Less depreciation
reserve	 815,841.32

Plant and equipment at cost..$	27,243.25
Office furniture
at cost	 29,128.66
$	56,371.91
Less depreciation	*
reserve	 2,818.60

 53,553 31


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: For the calendar year. This is the statement:
Operating Account for 1920
Cross Revenues closed voyages.. $10,027,442 77 Operating expenses	 8,733,917 22
Operating Profit Closed voyages. $ 1,293,525 55 Deduct-
Depreciation	$667,665.46
Outstanding liabilties	 22,000.00
Incorporation expenses	 5,400.00

Total	$49,243,604	70
Current Assets

Cash in banks and on hand..	..$	426,816	02Accounts receivable	
1,750,161	36
Advances to captains, crews and
agents	
54,605	09Adjusted losses due by underwriters	
67,860	82
Insurance claims, estimated
amount recoverable	
686,805	51Interest receivable accrued..	..	4,583	33Inventories of stores and supplies	
44,821	84
Dominion of Canada Victory loan
1934	
500,000	00Insurance unexpired	
908,390	73
Net earnings closed voyages
598,460 09
Total



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Liabilities
Captal Stock-
Authorized 10,000 shares of $100 each $1,000,000, issued 4,709 shares of $100 each..	$ 470,900	00
Votes payable-
Due Dominion Government secured by mortgages on
vessels	 49,535,892	71
Current Liabilities-
Accounts payable	 1,712,803	03
Open Voyages-
Balances of uncom p 1 e t e d
voyages	 963,820	65
Surplus-
Contingent liabilities (none ascertained)	 1,004,233	01
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As regards current assets, hon. members will, I am sure, note with pleasure the strong liquid position of the operating company. No bank loans are shown, and the operating company is in an easy position financially.
Mr. VIEN:: Are the boats insured?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Yes. Insurance premiums alone for the past year amounted to over $1,000,000, and they are included in operating expenses. The ships are insured up to 80 per cent of their original cost.


Thomas Vien: How is the depreciation calculated?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I have the information here; but it is somewhat technical, and if the hon. member will be good enough to ask me that question again when we get into committee on the Estimates, I shall be glad to give him the details.


Thomas Vien: When we come to that in the Estimates, will the minister be prepared to tell us the current value of the same type of ships in the markets of the world?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: ment of these vessels, down to the minutest detail. In the circumstances, this House and the country generally may feel confident that, given equal opportunities, we can build ships in competition with the world and build them as well. I desire particularly to tender my thanks to the naval architect, Mr. Duguid, to my very able deputy, Mr. Alex. Johnston, and to all those who assisted me during these years in carrying to a successful conclusion, if I may be permitted to say so, the creation of Canada's large and splendid mercantile fleet.


James Alexander Robb: Before the minister leaves
his statement, and in order to complete it, perhaps he might take the House into his confidence and say whether the rates are fixed on a joint tariff basis, or are competitive with other steamship lines operating on similar routes. That is one question which I should like the minister to keep in mind. I desire also to know whether any preference is given, in the export of Canadian goods, as between the manufactured product and raw material. I think the minister will understand in a general way what I mean. Further, is any preference given Canadian goods over goods of neighbouring countries in the matter of export, and are the rates on imports on the same basis as the export rates?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I have no desire to interpose any objection to the question if the minister desires to reply. But privileges accorded one hon. member should be accorded all, and in that case I am afraid we should have a very irregular proceeding and one in contravention of the rules. It seems to me, therefore, that it would be much more fitting and desirable if questions on points of detail were withheld until the House is in Committee of Supply.


James Alexander Robb: I bow to your ruling, Mr. Speaker, but I thought that possibly the minister might think it advisable to complete his statement in the direction I have suggested.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: As I have already stated, government ships being vested solely in the operating company, I have no detailed knowledge as to the computation of freight rates. I am glad that the hon. member has asked the question, and when we are in Committee of Supply I shall be prepared to give with pleasure the information he seeks. As regards the preference given Canadian products, I do not think that question has arisen or is likelv
[Mr. Ballantyne 1
to arise, because our ships have never been in such a position that they could not take all the cargo that was available at any port and load it for the port of destination.


Mr. D. D. McKENZIE (Cape Breton North and Victoria):: I am sure we have listened with a great deal of interest to the exhaustive statement of the Minister of Marine. It is difficult for the ordinary man not fully trained in business, to grasp the details so as to be able to say whether or not we are in a solvent condition in connection with the business of shipping. One thing that strikes a person at once is the fact that we have built ships, according to the statement of the minister, costing something like $191 per deadweight ton. These ships are not to-day worth half the money paid for them, but in making out his statement the hon. gentleman puts upon his balance sheet the value of the ships as if it were really what the ships cost in the first instance. They are probably worth less than half of what they cost, and the minister will find that possibly he could not sell any one of his ships to-day at one-third of the price he paid for its construction. Indeed, it is doubtful whether he could sell them at all; it is exceedingly doubtful whether he could give them away. It is therefore a grave question for the Canadian people whether or not the expenditure of seventy-five million dollars in ships, which certainly will not pay for their operation, and which we could not get off of our hands if we wanted to sell them, is a wise venture. That, of course, will be brought out more fully when we are studying the details of the minister's estimates, when we shall have an opportunity of going carefully into these matters. Perhaps it is interesting to know that it is just twelve years ago to-day when the present Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster) moved his famous resolution involving the building of ships in this country. That resolution was moved on the 29th March, 1909, and the final action of the House, so far as the resolution itself was concerned, took place on the following day, the 30th March, 1909. The policy that was agreed to by both sides of the House at that time involved the building of a Canadian navy, and, incidentally, the building of merchant marine ships as they might be required for the general purposes of the country. It is unnecessary to say to-day that, if that policy had been adopted, when the war broke out we should have had warships at normal prices, costing about a fourth of what we

are paying for ordinary tramp ships today; and the prices of other ships would have been proportionate. But a change of government took place; new men came to the helm, and new policies followed, a policy of delay, a policy of do nothing, a policy in regard to shipbuilding which stood in abeyance for some years, from 1909 until the 4th day of April, 1918, as the minister has just announced. I would say to my hon. friend at once that when he came to parliament on the date referred to with a shipbuilding policy for the construction of tramp ships, of freight ships, that if it had not been for the war he could not have had a "look in" for this policy at all. But we were then suffering under the stress of war, and anything that would have a tendency to relieve the existing situation was likely to receive and did receive the support of both sides of the House. But I say to the minister, and I address my remarks also to the Government, that when that distressing situation ceased, when the armistice was signed-which I believe was on the 11th of November, 1918, a few months after the Government's policy was inaugurated-when the necessity for building ships for war purposes had disappeared, and he should have halted, he should have finished the construction of the ships then in hand and not have ventured any further into the business of shipbuilding. I am sure that if I had been in the House at that time, and I suppose I was, I would have given my assistance-at all events by a vote if that were necessary-to the establishment of the policy of building ships for purposes rendered necessary by the war; but I am not so clear that it was necessary, even according to the statement of the hon. gentleman, to step in and build these ships. He says that all the Canadian shipyards at that time were fully engaged in the building of ships for the Home Government for the purposes of the war; that we were supplying the money and the ships were being built as rapidly as they could be built. If that was the case I do not at all see the necessity why we stepped in. If there was a possibility of adding to the quantity of tonnage that was imperatively required, owing to war reasons, I would put up both hands for making a start; but when the armistice was signed there was no further necessity for the building of ships by this Government

not a vessel was then being torpedoed and we
had plenty of shipping in this country for all practical purposes. Such being the case, I do say that from that moment forward the Minister of Marine and the Government have been following a policy which is absolutely wrong and absurd, as far as business principles are concerned, and have followed a policy that will be as bad for 'Canada as it has been in the case of the national ownership of railways. When we come to put a proper value on these ships, when another year comes and we get an honest statement from the Department of Marine, we will find that in proportion to the amount of money invested we are just as badly off as we are in connection with the government-owned railways. Therefore it is only a further evidence that governments should, as far as possible, keep their hands off private enterprises and allow private individuals, who are trained in these enterprises, to look after them-the Government should confine itself to looking after the administration of the affairs of the country generally. That is the position which I have always taken in connection with the railroads. Of course if, during the war, it was necessary for railroads to be built by the nation for war purposes I would have voted for such a policy and said that was the proper thing to do; but when the war ended I would certainly be opposed to any further building of railways for war purposes. In the same way I am opposed to the building of ships on any such ground.
I submit, Mr. Speaker, that if these ships are for the development of Canadian trade we should undertake that development where it is most necessary, and where it will be of direct advantage to the people of Canada. What is the matter, if the ships of the Canadian Merchant Marine are lying idle, with using these ships to develop the coal trade of this country? Last week the hon. member for South Perth (Mr. Steele) moved a [DOT] resolution for an investigation into the coal situation, and in speaking in its support he declared that conditions in Ontario, particularly in the western part, were such that the inhabitants dreaded the approach of winter because they had no supplies of coal available. Well, there is an abundance of coal in the province of Nova Scotia and in the Maritime Provinces generally. Evidently, according to the minister, we have lots of shipping. In that case, seeing that navigation in open up to a point beyond Montreal, what is the matter with

using the ships of the Canadian Merchant Marine for the transportation of coal from the Maritime Provinces and having it stored at places inland where it would be available for our own people-in other words having Canadian coal carried by our own ships and by our own railways, if that is necessary, for the safety, protection and well being of our own people? Is it not much better to have our ships engaged in that way than for them to be swinging idly at anchor in the different harbours along our coasts, while in the meantime the overhead expense goes on just the same, the officers, the sailors, the engineers, and the firemen being paid just the same although they are doing nothing? Would it not be better if we had a statement from the minister that such a service as I have indicated was about to be put into operation? Would it not be better that, possessing shipping and facilities for transportation, we should get the benefit of them in our own country? But what, sir, are the facts? The minister made the remarkable statement that the Government is competing with itself in the matter of the carriage of freight. We have two ports on our Atlantic coast from which we send goods to Newfoundland. The terminus of the Intercolonial Railway, and of the National Railway system, is at North Sydney. From that port large quantities of goods-and we would like the amount to be very much larger-are sent to Newfoundland. Halifax is the only other Atlantic port from which we export goods from Canada to Newfoundland, so far as I know. Well, the minister has told us that he is competing at Halifax with the Government railway at North Sydney. That railway, to make money, must carry goods from North Sydney whence they go to Newfoundland. If these goods are taken off at Halifax and the Canadian Government 'steamships are employed in their carriage, thus operating in competition with the government railway system, we have the most .aubsurd spectacle of a government competing against itself in the carriage of freight and cutting down its own profits. That is the situation as it is to-day.
I repeat, the minister should have called a halt when we reached the stage that there was no further necessity for building ships on account of war conditions. But he made the mistake of continuing in his policy, and now he finds that he has a white elephant on his hands in the shape of these ships. He cannot sell them to advantage and cannot operate them at a profit under present conditions. Of course

the same cry will be raised by his department that was raised by the Department of Railways in regard to the railway situation: This is not of our choosing, these vessels are on our hands, what are we to do with them? That was the cry with the Department of Railways uttered with respect to the railways-these railways have been put on our hands, what will we do with them?-we will have to do something with them. And so it goes on and the people pay the piper every time. In conclusion, I wish to point out that if we are going to have these ships they should be used to the advantage of our own people and in improving trade conditions in Canada. The hon. member for Port Arthur (Mr. Keefer) pointed out, and ha was backed up by hon. gentlemen opposite, that the only way to fully develop trade from the east to the west in this country, is by the opening up of the St. Lawrence route-at least it is one of the routes available and the most feasible one. Let me say to the minister that if he is going to have these ships on his' hands he should make every possible effort to open up a proper channel, as far inland as possible in Canada, so that he will find a use for at least a few of these vessels. At present he has too many, far too many. Any person who has any sense of proportion, or any business capacity will invest his money in a trade in proportion to its development. The minister has gone far too fast in the building of ships in Canada and he will find that there is no work for these ships to do, that he has to compete with the world in the carriage of freight. He will not be in a position to get any business that will amount to a paying proposition. I hope that when we come down to details in regard to this matter the minister will be able to present us with fuller and better information.
I congratulate the minister upon his apparent willingness to throw the full flood of daylight upon the operations of his department. I am pleased to know that he is not following the Nieodemus-like practice of the Department of Railways and Canals; he is not moving in the night. He proposes by his open way of doing business to dispense with the secret manoeuvres of the "dark-lantern brigade" operating our railways and which has to report to us a deficit of something like $70,000,000 or $100,000,000. So not only in business but in all other matters, we, on this side of the House at all events, will commend and encourage the most open methods, and we trust that before we are

through with the minister's Estimates and our discussion of his general policy he will find that we are quite capable of appreciating the situation. And he had better come here equipped with the fullest information that he can give the House in regard to this enterprise.


Mr. MICHAEL CLARK (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, I should wish as far as possible to accede to any request so courteously made as the request of the hon. Minister of Marine (Mr. Ballantyne) that discussion upon the statement which he has presented to the House this afternoon should be postponed until we have had time to read it and are seized of the details of the very large question involved. But in that connection it occurs to me that the Government have not been well advised in bringing this matter before the House this afternoon. We had better look at this thing squarely without any camouflage,- to use the word which is so common on our lips and in our newspapers to-day. There is a great deal of talk about this shipping scheme in the press, there is a great deal of talk about it in the business circles of Montreal and other shipping points of the country, and there is a great deal of talk about it amongst serious citizens who are to any extent apprized of the grave financial position of this country. And while, I repeat, I should have desired to wait for details, I think the postponement might very well have been on the part of the ministry until we had a full House to discuss a question which is bulking so large in the public thought and is of such vital importance to this country. Not having any knowledge that this statement would be submitted this afternoon, and not having had time to peruse the speech of my hon. friend, I am a little at a loss to go into this whole question, but I should not have been doing justice to my own conscience as a citizen of Canada and as a member of this House, and I should not have been doing justice to a great public question, if I allowed it to pass without at least a word or two of comment.
My hon. friend from Cape Breton North and Victoria (Mr. McKenzie) does not seem quite content to have any part or lot in this shipping business at the present moment. Well, he betrays considerable agility in that respect in being able to turn a pretty sharp corner, Mr. Speaker, unless my memory fails me. I am not fortified with any more than my recollection of Hansard, but if my recollection is correct, my hon. friend the Minister of
Marine might very well have thanked the hon. member for North Cape Breton and Victoria, as well as the hon. members for Maisonneuve (Mr. Lemieux) and Shelburne and Queen's (Mr, Fielding) for the initial support, at any rate, which was rendered to his scheme. As for me, Sir, my garments are clean. Any member of this House can read the debates in regard to the shipping programme that have taken place from the first day that my hon. friend brought his scheme before Parliament and he will find me on record as having warned the minister that he was embarking upon a scheme which was going to lead to financial disaster for the country -and I do not mind telling him very frankly that there are a good many of his own friends who know that that financial disaster, if not actually here, is very close at hand. My recollection about my hon. friend from North Cape Breton and Victoria is that this shipping business bulked very largely in his political career. I am not at all sure that it was not in a debate on shipping that he made his famous avowal of being a protectionist. If I am wrong he will correct me. I am nearly sure that it was in that debate. He was leader of the Opposition at the time, and naturally on a question of this size and importance being introduced he, as leader of the Opposition, had to stand up and tell the people what he thought, and he did not hesitate much about it. He said: I am a protectionist. I am all for selling steel plates as long as they are made in Nova Scotia; I am for building ships, if it furnishes a market for steel plates in Nova Scotia. I hope I am not misrepresenting my hon. friend. I am nearly sure that that is the substance which a reasonably good memory furnishes me with of what he said on that occasion.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: This is a case, Mr. Speaker, in which silence does not give consent.


Michael Clark: I did not
catch what my hon. friend said. It was addressed in so low a tone and so exclusively to the Speaker that it could not possibly reach me at this end of the chamber.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Mr. Speaker, I said
that this is a case in which silence does not give consent.


Michael Clark: Well, Mr. Speaker, there*are times when it is necessary to keep silence even from good words. But I do not know that my hon. friend

has any very good defence to make in any very good words, for I know his pugnacity is so great that that defence would be forthcoming at the point of the usual dagger which he carries so handy. I think that his silence certainly does give consent, and that he practically agrees that I am not misrepresenting what his attitude was on that occasion.
Now, we are not in any doubt about what the attitude of other hon. members was, because the minister, who doubtless has refreshed his memory for the occasion, has offered his thanks to the hon. members for Shelburne and Queen's and for Maison-neuve for their kind support to his scheme at the time, I think he said, of its initiation. Well, I have not misunderstood that point. That may account in some measure for what, I repeat, is a somewhat extraordinary line of procedure. I do not know why a statement of this importance should have been brought on the first day after the holidays when notoriously it is the general expectation that we have a small House, unless it was thought that it could be crowded through and no discussion take place upon it. I seriously hope there was no understanding of that kind in the House. I should be very sorry for parliamentary traditions and parliamentary practice if we had got to that point. But, I repeat, I should not have done my duty to myself and to the country if I had not stated where I stand in the matter and repeated the warnings that I have given before. I do not know how far my hon. friend the minister intends to go with this scheme. He now has not the leader of the Opposition to deal with apparently, but the ex-leader of the Opposition, in a very much chastened frame of mind compared with that in which he spoke about shipping in the early stages of this scheme.
Now, I just want to say this about this shipping measure as far as we have it before us this afternoon. I did not hear the minister's whole statement, so I do not know what he intends to do further in the matter. But I want to endorse what my hon. friend the member for Cape Breton North and Victoria (Mr. McKenzie) pointed out-that this is a scheme which in its magnitude is now almost as serious as the railroad problem which is exercising the mind of every thoughtful Canadian. I say that without fear of successful contradiction. The minister went into it with his eyes open, with warnings in frojjt of him. He has gone into it by stages from year to year. At the time of the armistice-I rely

upon public prints for my information, but if I am correctly informed, at that time an expenditure of only sixteen and one-half millions of money had been embarked upon in the carrying out of this scheme. Now, that was a considerable sum of money, but as my hon. friend from North Cape Breton says, these contracts were given in war time, for a specific purpose, when the whole country was behind any step that was necessary for the winning of the war. Our losses could have been cut to a very small proportion indeed if we had stopped this business at the time of the armistice-even if my hon. friend had stopped at the time I warned him he should stop; at the time I warned him that he was backing a "wrong 'un" for the people of this country.
Now, what is the condition of affairs? The same public prints tell me that including the contracts that were entered into with the Imperial Munitions Board, this country has embarked upon an expenditure up to date of no less a sum than $140,000,000 in connection with this shipbuilding scheme. These are very serious statements; they are statements which require an alert Opposition. One hundred and forty millions embarked upon; these statements are made in public. And what is the condition of the property? I have a recollection of recent statements, made, I think, last year; I have a recollection of my hon. friend the Minister of Marine saying that he could sell these ships for more than they had cost to build.. Would he repeat that statement to-day? If he did he would correct the best business columns of the best newspapers in this country, because we are told what is in accordance with the shipping knowledge of everybody who has studied shipping at all, that the value of the ships has been cut in half. I question whether for any ship he has built the minister could get half of what it cost him to build it. That is a very serious matter, Mr. Speaker, for the people of this country. It is a very serious position for any minister of the Crown to be in in regard to a scheme with which he persevered in spite of warnings that he was going in the wrong direction.
What about freights to-day? Why, before coming east I read a statement issuing from the port of St. John from the man who is responsible for getting cargoes for the government ships, that cargoes were not to be had. I warned my hon. friend that it would be so. I told him from my own personal experience what shipping in Britain had paid during the Boer war and what it was paying within a year and a half after-

wards; percentages of twenty had shrunk to one and one and one-half, and the people holding the shares were glad to get it. He had these warnings before him. Despite his attempt to make a rosy story this afternoon, that is the position the Government of Canada is in with regard to these ships: The value of the ships is cut through the middle; freights cannot be had. Why, only the other day I read in the columns of the Montreal Star-a publication coming from a very good town, one which has a reputation for political leanings that would lead one to think it would be favourable, if it could be, to the Government in power and to the Minister of Marine-that some of the merchant ships of Canada were coasting along the shores of Scandinavia seeking cargoes, and that some of them have even been looking furtively to Germany for cargoes, until Canadian exports revive; a very interesting statement to me, and it ought to be a very interesting statement to my hon. friend the Prime Minister, because it contains the admission that Canadian exports at the present moment are in need of being revived. Last summer the right hon. gentleman was rather jaunty about the condition of Canadian exports, but now it seems that Canadian ships have to coast along the shores of Scandinavia seeking cargoes, "until Canadian exports revive." Yet one of the objects of the building of these ships, according to my hon. friend's statement this afternoon, was to promote the export trade of Canada.
Now, that is the position of my hon. friend's enterprise up to date, according to statements that are printed in almost every newspaper in the country. For some of this information I depend on what my memory recalls to me of what appeared not later than Saturday in the parliamentary correspondence of the government organ, the press supporting the Government in this city.
We had this scheme entered lightly upon -and I dwell upon this for a moment without wishing to extend my remarks- we had this scheme entered upon according to old, bad political conditions Jin this country. Such schemes are as common under a protective tariff as withered leaves in autumn. My hon. friend to whom I have referred took occasion to avow himself a protectionist, thereby, with very great courage, probably losing the leadership of his party. The scheme is very simple; it was very simple at the time; it was simple to carry it on. We traded upon the patriotism of the people-the Government did, anyhow.
It looked so fine. "We have to help out the winning of the war"-we all agreed about that end of it. "It will be a splendid thing to build ships in Montreal and in Three Rivers"-I do not see my hon. friend from Three Rivers (Mr. Bureau) here, but Three Rivers, I think, was included. Then, of course, there was Vancouver, and where else were they built? I do not remember all the places, but the minister is an adept at that sort of thing, and he got fine support for his scheme from both sides of the House. He introduced it, the steel plates were sold, and the orders were issued. Why shouldn't they be? We were getting subscriptions to Victory bonds at the time by the hundred million. I have, in private and in public, expressed the opinion that the last victory bond issue in this country, subscribed to the tune of seven hundred millions, was a positive curse both to the Government and to the country. It indicated vast patriotism on the part of our people, but it put money by the hundred million into the hands of a government that did not know how to handle it. So you had your ship schemes and your housing schemes-thank God, in regard to that the provinces have used only half the money that was voted-and a hundred other channels were opened for the frittering away of the wealth of the people, until the finances of this country are in the condition they are in to-day and that every man from one end of the country to another who follows public affairs knows they are in. That, shortly, is the history of what happened after the war was over in regard to this shipping business.
Now, as I said in beginning, Mr. Speaker, I merely wanted to put myself upon record for, I think, the fourth time-at any rate, I have gone on record whenever my hon. friend has had the question before the House in one sense-that this was a financial escapade that was going to end in disaster for the country. On each occasion I warner my hon. friend that that was so, and while it is never any great line of conduct to say "I told you so," I would still confine myself to a warning and I would say to the hon. minister, for goodness sake, stop this thing now. You have had your eyes opened to the real nature of it; let us have the thing cease now; let us cut our loss as the stockbrokers advise us to do.
The project was carried out, I am sorry to say, with large support from the other side of the House-support derived from the old, bad system of looking at the needs

of the constituency rather than the needs of the country. If ever there was a scheme which should have been supported as a great national scheme, it was this, if there was anything in it at all; but, as I have said in this House again and again, it was looked at, as politics teaches us always to look at these measures, for its local value at certain points. So that the plates were sold at one place and something else was sold somewhere else; the ships were placed in various localities whether they were represented by Tories or by Liberals, and the result is that to-day, to the tune, according to some newspapers, of $140,000,000, we have "a painted ship upon a painted ocean." That is the scheme of my hon. friend up to date and I hope we have heard the last of any extension of it. The further one goes with it, the worse off this country will be. How we shall get out of our difficulties, the Lord only knows. We will get good help towards getting out of them when we get, to handle the finances of this country, people who have more sense of financial responsibility than, I am sorry to say, has been displayed in this shipping scheme that is-I endorse what the hon. member for Cape Breton North and Victoria (Mr. McKenzie) says-a white elephant only second to that of our railways themselves.


Rodolphe Lemieux: (Maison-neuve) : Mr. Speaker, as we have not before us the figures which the Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Ballantyne) gave to the House this afternoon, I will defer to a later date, when he brings down his Estimates, the general discussion and the specific discussion of some features of this venture. But in order that the House may understand at once my position in the matter, I wish to state that it is quite true that in 1918, during the war, before the armistice, I supported the shipbuilding programme of my hon. friend. Is that a crime, or is that an indication, as is suggested by the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark), of a dark association between both sides of this House in favour of some big interests? During the war, and because of the war, the Liberal party in the House of Commons stood for any sane and big national measure. From my seat in this House, I supported this shipping programme because we were officially informed that it was absolutely urgent that Canada should build ships in order to relieve the shipping situation of the Allies. I am not sorry in a way

that the experiment should have been made. We were told not so very long ago that it was absolutely impossible to build ships in Canada; that we could hardly find riveters; that we could not manufacture plates; that we could not have men to man our navy. I, as a Canadian, had enough pride that, even although told by Mr. Winston Churchill, that we were not able to build ships, we were, indeed, able to do it.
If I was in favour of the shipping programme of the Government during the war, before the armistice, one must not infer from that that I stand in favour of this huge expenditure now that the war is over. I can only re-echo what all business men in the country have been stating during the last two years, namely, that a halt should be. called to that carnival of expenditure. It is a well known fact that, since the armistice, and especially during the last fifteen or sixteen months, ships have been like a drug on the market in Great Britain, the United States and France. I have seen the figures; I have read the articles, and I have never understood why the Canadian Government and the Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Ballantyne) should have gone with such pig-headedness into this wild expenditure when they were warned from all sides, from all sources, that they were riding to a certain fall-because, from what I have learned this afternoon from the very attitude of the hon. gentleman, it is pretty certain that he is very gloomy as to the future of the Canadian Mercantile Marine Company.
I am glad, however, that he was able to state that Parliament could have access to all books, documents, even telegrams, which passed between the contractors and his department. His announcement is a justification of the attitude taken the other day by the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) and this side of the House, when we pleaded in vain with the Government for access, not to confidential documents which might injure the Canadian National Railway system, but to documents to which Parliament is naturally entitled. I suppose my hon. friend has been warned by responsible people, by friends of the Government, that the attitude of the leader of the Government (Mr. Meighen) and of his party, as well as the attitude of the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark) the other day, was not in conformity with British traditions and institutions. Why should we have

freer access to documents concerning the building and managing of a Government-owned navy than to documents referring to the building and managing of a Government-owned railway system? the two cases are parallel. But the other day the Government thought, perhaps, that the motion made by the leader of the Opposition was inopportune and that they should, therefore, vote against it. They have found out since however, from their own friends. I have in mind two articles published by a leading paper in this country, the Montreal Gazette, strongly condemning the Government and their friends for the vote they gave in the House the other day on the question of the production of documents. Is it not, Mr. Speaker, one of the elementary rights of hon. members of this House, elected by the people, that they are entitled to have access to the books and documents concerning the administration of the affairs of the country? Our railway system, our merchant marine, are both parts of the administration, perhaps in an indirect way, if you please, of the affairs of the country, and why should we have been refused by the Government the right to have access to these documents and books? I am glad my hon. friend has learned better and has taken heed of the advice from his friends in Montreal who complained bitterly of the refusal given by the Government.
As to the Canadian Merchant Marine, the Government will learn on that question also, they have lost the support of their best friends. My hon.' friend the Minister of Marine and Fisheries said this afternoon that the bankers were not well informed when they dared criticise the administration of that branch of his department. Mr. Speaker, there are no two men in this country better informed than the President of the Bank of Montreal and the President of the Royal Bank, and they both condemn the Canadian Government Merchant Marine as an unwise enterprise which in the long run would bring disaster to the country and to the Government. I have not here the words of the President of the Bank of Montreal or those of the President of the Royal Bank, but I have read them. These gentlemen were only too well informed.
I speak to-day with some sense of pride, because I remember that just a year before the election, during a discussion on some of the branch lines of the Canadian Northern system, when I ventured to express the opinion that government ownership of railways would bring disaster to this country, what a howl of protest there was from the ranks opposite, and I remember well the lecture given me by the then Minister of Finance. Well, Mr. Speaker, who was right, and who was wrong? Government ownership not only as regards the railways but as regards the merchant marine is simply a mistake, if not a crime, and Canada to-day is facing the issue squarely. The country realize that for a passing whim the Government has sacrificed its best interests. I am not afraid, Mr. Speaker, to take the same stand to-day that I took two years ago, and especially after the admissions made this afternoon and the disappointment expressed by my hon. friend the Minister of Marine and Fisheries. If he could give us his honest opinion, if he could tell us his own intimate sentiments on the GoV' ernment railway policy, I am sure he would be at one with me and would condemn the Government and his colleagues for the crime they have committed against Canada.
The time will come when we shall discuss in detail the pragramme of the Government with respect to the merchant marine. This afternoon I just wish to state that if in 1918 I supported the programme of my hon. friend, it was because Canada was then at war, and because the Mother Country, on account of the destruction of so much tonnage in the North Sea and elsewhere by enemy submarine raids was most insistent on receiving aid from Canada. I did not commit myself to any policy of a Government-owned Merchant Marine. On the contrary, I say that my hon. friend should have halted his programme immediately after the armistice, because, being a business man, he should have known that from that moment ships would be available at half price in the United States, in France, and even in the Mother Country.
My hon. friend the Minister of Marine and Fisheries says that the merchant marine has not been appreciated as it should have been by the business community, by the manufacturers of Canada. Sir, the merchant marine was not built simply for the manufacturers. It was built for the whole Canadian people-fot^ the farmer, the miner, the fisherman, just as much as for the manufacturer. My hon. friend has said that he thought to expand the export business of Canada by means of the merchant marine. He will certainly have to revise his views on the tariff if he thinks

that by raising it " as high as Haman's gallows " he can develop any export business. My hon. friend may be able to develop an export business with the merchant marine if he invites the world at large to trade with Canada, but if when inviting the world, he a't the same time raises a barrier to prevent any trading with this country, I am afraid his hopes are doomed to disappointment.
Mr. Speaker, once more I say I am glad that the ships were built in Canada, although as I said a moment ago, my hon. friend should have stopped building immediately after ' the armistice. We have taught John Bull that Jack Canuck is able to take care of himself. Some years ago, as my hon. friend will remember, in 1913, we were solemnly told by the right hon. gentleman who was then Prime Minister, that he had received a communication from the Right Hon. Winston Churchill that Canada, forsooth, could not build ships, and that we should be satisfied to rely on the Mother Country in that regard. Well, though it has cost several million dollars, Mr. Speaker, we have at least this, satisfaction that we were able to demonstrate to the Right Hon. Winston Churchill that Canada can build ships.


Mr. EDMUND BRISTOL (Centre Toronto) :: The subject under discussion is one to which I have given some attention. I have listened with a great deal of care to the observations of hon. members and the criticisms which have been levelled at the policy of the Minister of Marine (Mr. Ballantyne). The objections seem to be two-fold: first, that the merchant marine should never have been built-which, I understand, is really the view of my hon. friend from Red Deer (Mr. Clark)-and second, the view of my distinguished friends of the official Opposition, that all shipbuilding should suddenly have been stopped when the armistice was declared. Now, it is only reasonable to view the situation in the light of the conditions that existed when the shipbuilding policy was adopted. What was the world-wide situation then? What was the world-wide cry? It was that every country associated with the Allies should build ships. Not only was that cry insistent, but the condition in the Mother Country showed the imperative necessity for ships. She was not only building all the ships which her own shipyards could contain, but she was straining every nerve on the continent of Europe, and was spending millions of dollars in

this country building ships for which, as I understand, the people of Canada were lending her money, since they were anxious to have the shipbuilding programme carried on in view of the submarine menace. The minister, backed up by practically all the people of this country, except my hon. friend from Red Deer, thought that it was only fair, instead of allowing Great Britain to borrow money from Canada and build ships in this country, that Canada should assume that burden and put her own money into ships. What was the position in the United States? They took possession of every private shipyard. They took over, I suppose, at least a dozen large shipyards, and they have invested billions of dollars in ships which were constructed at the same time Canada was making her small effort in this direction. The fact of the matter is that there was not a country in the world that did not believe that shipping was going to be the best property any one could build, and they were all tumbling over one another to build ships. The belief of the people in every country at that time was that the building of ships was not only a good policy from the point of view of the war, but that it would prove good business. There was not a nation that was not anxious to build ships, and certainly no nation was more anxious than the United States. The American Government took over the orders of the Cunard and White Star lines in American shipyards because they said that the United States needed ships. Why, the paltry effort of Canada alongside of what the United States has done is a mere bagatelle; and, as I have observed, the position taken by every civilized people in the world at that time, was that it was the best thing to build ships. This was the conviction of everybody except my hon. friend from Red Deer, who, because of his belief that shipbuilding could be carried on in Canada only under a protective policy, is opposed to the building of ships in Canada.
Mr. MICHAEL CLARK .(Red Deer) : My hon. friend will allow me to say that I never said a word in public or private that could be construed as being in favour of a protective policy.


Edmund James Bristol: My hon. friend misunderstands me. I suggested that his opposition to the construction of ships in Canada was because the work could be done only by virtue of a protective tariff, and his position was that it could not be done so cheaply here as in the Old Country. We

are all aware of that fact, and that was one of the reasons why last year the Government passed a shipbuilding Act to lend money for the building of ships in this country. But the point is that the world was shipbuilding crazy, and we had only the small end of the craze in Canada.


Mr. LAPOINTE:: "Craze" is the word.


Edmund James Bristol: There was no one who did not believe that it was a good policy and one that was ncessary in the exigencies of the time.
Now, to come to the armistice. What was the position then? The Government of this country had shipyards working overtime constructing ships. There were yards that came into existence that would never have been established but for our national shipbuilding policy that had been instituted during the war. There was some $250,000,000 invested in this industry in Canada, and practically 250,000 men, directly or indirectly dependent on it, besides some 50,000 who directly derived their subsistence from the building of ships. What was the Government to do? Were they suddenly to cancel contracts and turn every one of these men loose, with the resultant unemployment throughout the country? Such an action, in my humble judgment, would have been suicidal; it would have been adverse to the best interests of the country. It is strange that only to-day, for the first time, we hear this wonderful criticism of the whole subject, and suggestions as to what should have been done at that time. I fancy it is a case of foresight and hindsight; it is wonderful how wise one can be after the event.
My hon. friends say that these ships are worth only half of what they cost. Well, 1 venture to say that if our ships are worth only half of what they originally cost, the ships in the United States are probably worth two-thirds less than what it cost to construct them. Our ships were constructed very much cheaper than the ships in the United States, where the average price was something like $300 against our price of $185 per ton dead weight. Not only did we construct better ships than those built in the United States, but ours were vastly cheaper. Our neighbours to the south were building ships under conditions similar to ours, but conditions in Canada were worse because we had to import plates from the United States for a long time, until the Govern-82
ment adopted a policy of establishing a plate mill in this country, which made it possible for Canada to build every part of a ship and not be dependent on the United States. Before that policy had been adopted, we had to wait until the United States were good and ready to give us plates.
My hon. friends' complaint is that some of the ships are not earning money to-day; they say that the ships are tied up. Well, there are other ships than Canadian that are tied up; the ships of England and every other country are largely in this condition. To hear hon. gentlemen talking about ships being tied up in Canada, one would imagine that there was not such a thing as a worldwide cessation of trade since last November; one would think that conditions in France and Germany were perfectly settled, and that peace reigned throughout Russia. To hear the criticisms that are levelled at the minister on the ground of Canadian ships being tied up, one would suppose that conditions were normal in every country except Canada. That suggestion is ridiculous, because every one knows that there has been practically a worldwide cessation of trade, and the ships of England, good as they are

although they are no better than the boats built here-are equally as idle as Canadian vessels. Until our railways and the railways of the United States are on a stable basis; until there has been a worldwide readjustment of the rates of exchange; until trade is again normal; and until the situation in Germany and Russia, and elsewhere, is settled, no man can reasonably expect the business of shipping to resume its pre-war status. And my hon. friends would be helping the country much more if, instead of the destructive criticism which they level at the Government for a state of things, which is only similar to that existing in other countries, they would offer some patriotic suggestion of a constructive character in regard to the railway and shipping situation in Canada at the present time. The construction of ships is one thing, and their management in the future is another; and that is a fair field for discussion. But to go back and discuss now the question as to the date at which the Government's shipbuilding policy should have ceased to operate, and to criticize the Government because some of their ships are idle, when there is a similar situation throughout the world, is futile and is a waste of time.


Arthur Meighen: The intention of the Government in having this statement placed on Hansard to-day was to enable hon. members to acquaint themselves with the details of the operation of the vessels, in order that they might approach the discussion of the general policy later on, or of the Estimates having to do with that policy, intelligently in the light of the figures there presented. The occasion of going into Committee of Supply was taken in order that, if it was desired, there should be comment on the part of hon. members, particularly by the leader of the Opposition, as is sometimes the case when such statements as these are presented. I do not think the presence or the absence of a portion of the House to-day has any real bearing on the question. The intention was to give hon. members an opportunity to read the statement in print, because only by doing so could acquaintance with the actual situation be at all thorough or detailed. Consequently the day chosen was most appropriate for that purpose. I am sorry that, as things have turned out, hon. members opposite were found prepared for a very dismal presentation, whereas, as a matter of fact, the statement made by the Minister of Marine reflects anything but a disastrous situation-possibly it is not as rosy as many of us expected when the programme was launched, certainly not as rosy as there were just reasons for expecting at that time, but on the whole fair and satisfactory; and particularly so when compared with the experience of any other country not excepting Great Britain herself. In fact there is no country that today can show as creditable a record in the matter of shipbuilding, and in the results of shipbuilding and operation in the period of time which we have been in them as can this Dominion of Canada. It is important, and I think it is due to the House, that an opportunity should be given for the study of the details of operation by a perusal of the printed statement in Hansard; otherwise errors are very easily fallen into, errors such as we have had many examples of this afternoon. It is a good thing to study Hansard. It is a practice that I would commend to hon. gentlemen opposite, and, if I might specialize this afternoon, I would commend that practice to the hon. member for Maison-neuve. I believe if he will spend a night or two reading some of the good portions of Hansard-his own speeches above all, delivered on occasions when the Estimates for shipbuilding were under weigh

he 'Mr. Bristol.]
would come to this House better prepared for the discussion of these matters, and would never fall into the mistake of making a speech such as he did this afternoon. I have some recollection of the eloquence with which my hon. friend applauded, not only the launching of the shipbuilding programme but every step taken in that programme from the date of its launching, and-so far as I am aware, and I venture to say with great positiveness-up to a year ago. Now the fact is that not one single ship has been laid down-that is to say not one contract has been entered into, no commitment has been made in regard to shipbuilding construction-for just the time he says we should have known it would be better not to build any more ships, just sixteen months. Would the hon. member say that as the armistice was signed on November 11, we should have thrown a ship into the ocean upside down that was perhaps two-thirds constructed at that time, or one-third constructed, or even twenty per cent constructed? Did the hon. member support this programme in the first place, or did any hon. member opposite support it, merely as a war programme? If that is the case my recollection is not very accurate. We supported this programme because we needed ships for the purposes of Canadian commerce. It is true that we needed ships to carry Canadian commerce during the war; but the vessels that carried Canadian commerce, and world commerce, were destroyed by the submarine and we needed them not only during the war but after the war period. It was known that when the war was over there would be a very serious shortage of ships, and each country vied with the other in an endeavour to catch up with that shortage and to give its own people the benefit of the industry that would be entailed in the process of catching up. In that etfort Canada bore a creditable part-not a part as great relatively as the efforts of larger nations but a creditable part. The vessels constructed were creditable to this country, and the contracts for that construction reflected honour, not dishonour, upon the Department of Marine. We have the ships to-day and there has been nothing in the way of substantial complaint with respect to their construction; and in that particular regard, above all others, our experience compares most favourably with that of other nations.
The hon. member made, or at all events set out to make, a point on the reference

by the Minister of Marine to the availability to Parliament of all documents, letters, correspondence and papers relating to the construction of these vessels-


Rodolphe Lemieux: And telegrams also.


Arthur Meighen: Certainly, telegrams
form part of correspondence. The hon. member affected to see in that a recantation of the position the Government took the other day in relation to documents and papers respectng the operation of the Canadian National Railways, as well as the operation of the national shipping. The hon. member affected to see in it an inconsistency with the position the Government took at that time. His imagination led him on until he leaped to the conclusion that that inconsistency was due to the dictation of the Montreal Gazette and the financiers of Montreal, who had told the Government that it was all wrong on this question of correspondence on the subject of operation, and that it should right about face at once. I want to compliment my hon. friend on his imagination, but I cannot compliment him on his hearing. Actually what the Minister of Marine said what this-it happens to have been committed to writing and the minister read it directly from notes:
There is the further consideration from which, as the minister primarily responsible for the programme I derive some comfort, and that is that every contract made, every voucher paid, every letter and telegram exchanged between the department and contractors, is open for the fullest inspection of any member of the House who desires any further information.
Every word of this is in line with what I uttered myself in stating the position of the Government in relation to the national railways-every single word. All correspondence with any department of the Government in relation to any subject at all is available to this House. That has always been the case, it is the case to-day. Were we, under a department of government, to construct railway cars, were we to make rails, were we to build anything at all, everything relating to the activities of that department and passing between that department and the contractor, or passing between the department and anybody else, necessarily is available and must be produced on an order of this House. That is true in regard to the construction of ships. But what has that to do with the operation of the vessels or of railways under a corporation?-That is a different thing altogether.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Are not the Canadian
people the shareholders in the enterprise?
82i	'	.


Arthur Meighen: We know all that, but the difference is the same difference which I pointed out the other day, and I know I have convinced the hon. member that the position taken by the Minister of Marine is the position which I take myself. My hon. friend contends that there is no difference when the ships or railways are operated under a corporation. Well, the judgment of this House is that there is a great deal of difference. The judgment of the House, and it was pronounced very emphatically, is that we had to go very carefully in determining what in the nature of correspondence and details of operation should be producible in Parliament from day to day if we were going to make a business success either of the operation of our shipping or of our railways.
If we are going to get any man who is big enough and able enough to take in hand the tremendous responsibility of operating them, Parliament must proceed very carefully in deciding what part of his operations is to be exposed to his competitor and to the public from day to day. That is the principle I sought to enunciate then; by that principle I stand to-day; and from that principle the statement of the Minister of Marine makes no deviation whatever. The hon. member says it is too bad. It is too bad, because the whole basis of half his speech falls down.
The hon. member for Maisonneuve made some other statement to which I was anxious to reply. Before I do so, let me refer to the rather doleful lamentation of the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark).
I readily accord to the hon. member full credit for consistency as regards the whole shipbuilding programme of this Dominion. On that score there is no fault to be found with ^ him. But when he says that this Dominion is to-day in a state of appalling financial calamity, and that second only to our railway trouble is the great difficulty we are in with respect to our mercantile marine, I am afraid he rather exaggerates a dread that he has been harbouring for some years. Our ships, he says, are worth very little. Well, they are at least earning a good sum over operating expenses,-and you cannot make any trains do that over the Transcontinental railway, nor over the Grand Trunk Pacific railway. Those ships are at least earning some million odd dollars over operating expenses, and after allowance for depreciation and every other just allowance that need be made they are still able to pay a small percentage upon their actual cost, although they were built at a time-and it was essential to build

them then-when that cost was necessarily abnormal. Surely that is not a position wholly disastrous. It they were able to pay a larger percentage of interest it would be better, but having in mind the fact that their construction was essential, and that it was commenced at a time when the cost was necessarily high-keeping in mind those two factors, which are the very bases of the whole case upon which we are now proceeding,-surely the result shown by the statement of the Minister of Marine is not a cause for tearful lamentations. We can face the situation as to our mercantile marine; we can face the situation, too, precipitated by premature and expensive railway building, not at a time when it was needed, but at a time when it was not needed at all-we can face both those situations because we are a strong and virile country. But in facing them do not treat them as comparable. We can look upon one with nothing except pleasure at having undertaken a great enterprise, and at least with satisfaction that it has gone through without any great cause for discontent; but the other is something which we cannot contemplate without, a very wholesome and unalloyed regret.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, I shall not attempt to follow my right hon. friend (Mr. Meighen) in his remarks concerning the Canadian Mercantile Marine, because I agree with him when he says that for an intelligent discussion of the statement which has been presented to the House this afternoon by the hon. Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Ballantyne) it is obviously desirable that we should have before us for careful examination the various facts and figures contained in that statement. The whole subject is too large to be dealt with off hand; it is second only to that of the railway problem which we had brought before us the other day, and it is absolutely essential that we be fully seized of all the details before the public can be properly acquainted with their significance, I might say with their direful significance.
But, Mr. Speaker, there is one remark of my right hon. friend's which I would not like to pass unnoticed, and that is the reference to the statement made by the Minister of Marine as to the information which he was prepared to give to Parliament on matters pertaining to the Canadian Mercantile Marine. I do not think that my right hon. friend has strengthened either his own position or the position of
[Mr. Meighen.l
the Government in what he has just told us as to the real significance of the utterance of the Minister of Marine. If I understand him aright, the right hon. gentleman makes a distinction between giving to this Parliament information concerning the administration of a great public enterprise where it is in the nature of correspondence with the department, and giving information where the administration is carried on by a corporation, so-called, although created for the purpose by the Government itself. For example, so far as our railways are concerned, the Government has formed, for the purpose of control and operation, what I might call a phantom corporation. When it suits the purpose of the Government to withhold information from the public, we are told that that information is part of the information of which this phantom corporation alone has knowledge and control. The only information that Parliament is to be acquainted with is the routine correspondence exchanged with the deputy head or possibly with the minister of the department himself.
Now we are told that the Government proposes to adopt exactly the same course in regard to the Canadian Merchant Marine. This is another colossal enterprise involving an expenditure of millions of dollars of the people's money, and yet, when it comes to accounting to the public for this expenditure, the public is to be told that they are to get no information whatever as the enterprise is being carried on by a corporation and this notwithstanding that the corporation is the creation of the Government itself. Let me say to my right hon. friend and to his Government that the people of Canada will hold him and his Government accountable for every cent of public money, whether it is expended directly by the minister in charge of a department, or by any corporation or other creature which the ministry itself may create for the purpose of carrying on its business. The public have to meet the bills in the shape of the heavy taxation which is being imposed upon them, taxation as regards the railways alone amounting to $169,000,000, according to the Estimates brought down for the present year, and taxation amounting to many millions of dollars for this merchant marine, according to the statement which the minister has just given to the House. It is impossible to imagine that the people of Canada will consent to pay the enormous sums which they are being called upon to pro-

vide by way of taxation for the conducting of these enterprises and will sit silent under the Government's refusal to give them any information as to how their money has been spent.


REPRESENTATION IN PARLIAMENT
William Lyon Mackenzie King: months, although Parliament was not in session at the time. In other words, where it suited the political and partisan ends of the Government, they were alert and ready to see that the representation was quickly made complete so far as this House of Commons was concerned; but where it was not their own political ends which were concerned, but rather the rights of the people to representation in this House, they were ready to ignore completely the fundamental right of the electors to representation.	.
Now, Mr. Speaker, it would seem that the Government purposes, in the case of the six constituencies I have just mentioned, to adopt a course very similar to that which they adopted in the case of the constituency of East Elgin; in other words, unless this House of Commons is prepared to express its opinion in no uncertain terms that every constituency in Canada should be represented in this Parliament just as quickly as possible, the Government in all probability will act in such a manner as to deprive the electors of these six constituencies of any representation during the present session of Parliament.
My right hon. friend may say that according to a statute which was passed by this Parliament on the 10th of November, 1919, the Government has a period of six months after a vacancy occurs within which to issue a writ for the filling of any vacancy. I would direct the attention of my right hon. friend to the wording of that statute. He will see that it was not drafted with a view primarily of affording the Government the latitude of running six months; it was framed rather with a view of putting a time limit on the period within which it would be possible for the Government to deny to the electors any representation. The Act will be found in the statutes of 1919, second session, being chapter 18, 10 George V, section 1, 11A. I quote:
In me event of a vacancy occurring a writ shall be issued within six months after the receipt by the clerk of the Crown in Chancery of the warrant for the issue of a new writ for the election of a member of the House of Commons.
Note these words, Mr. Speaker: shall be issued "within" six months. That is the time limit imposed on the Government, hut, as has been made apparent in so many debates in this House, the really important consideration in matters of public policy is not the letter of the law but the spirit of it, and the spirit of this enactment is that

there shall be some restraint upon the Government with a view to preventing it from denying to constituencies the right of representation to which they are justly entitled. I contend, Sir, that the Government's attitude towards vacancies should be one of endeavouring to see that so far as can conveniently be arranged every constituency in Canada shall have its due representation in Parliament.
Let me say just a further word, Mr. Speaker, in regard to the attitude assumed by the Prime Minister in this matter. Hon. members of this House as well as the public have a right to expect from any hon. gentleman holding the high and dignified position of Prime Minister of this country something more than ordinary courtesy and consideration when matters of great public concern are brought to his attention. I think it would be impossible for anyone to read the replies which have been made by my right hon. friend to questions put to him in this House concerning its representation without feeling that he has been, to say the least, very cavalier in the nature of his replies. Let me quote, for example, the reply of my right hon. friend to a question which was put to him on March 3. I addressed the right hon. gentleman in what I thought was a courteous and proper way when I asked if in the opinion of the Government the hon. member for Leeds had not forfeited his right to a seat in this House by virtue of having accepted a position as one of the arbitrators on the board which is to value the stock of the Grand Trunk Railway Company. When I asked that question I was not asking it in order to obtain personal information. I was asking it as a representative of the people, to obtain from the Government a statement which the people might have as the expression of the Government's view on that all-important matter. I think that my right hon. friend, as Prime Minister, should have given to that question an answer befitting its importance and significance. What was the reply made by my right hon. friend? It is to be found in Hansard of March 3, page 505, and is as follows:


Arthur Meighen: I do not know that the Government gives legal opinions, especially on the floor of Parliament. If the hon. gentleman will submit hiS question in the usual way on the Order Paper, he will receive an answer.
I might say to my right hon. friend that I did move in this House for an Address to His Excellency the Governor General:
For a copy of the Order in Council of July 9, 1920, appointing the Honourable Sir Thomas

White as an arbitrator to value the stock of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, any subsequent Orders in Council having reference to this matter, and for all correspondence between the Government and the Honourable Sir Thomas White respecting such appointment.
On March 10 of this year the House voted that address; but up to the present time- and to-day is the 29th of the month-it has been impossible for any one on this side of the House to secure the papers on this particular subject. That is not treating Parliament with the courtesy which hon. members have a right to expect from the Government on matters of this kind. I regret to say this, but I feel called upon to do so.
Not only has my right hon. friend been very cavalier in the nature of the replies he has made, but he has lacked candour in some of the replies which he has given. If there is one thing above another which the people of the country have a right to expect from its first citizen, I think it is the utmost frankness and candour on any question of great public concern. Let me, in this connection, read to the House the replies of my right hon. friend in regard to the resignation of the hon. member for St. Antoine (Sir Herbert Ames). On March 3,1 addressed the following questions to the Prime Minister:
Is the Prime Minister aware of the hon. member for St. Antoine (Sir Herbert Ames) having made any public declaration to the effect that he had tendered his resignation as a member of this Parliament? Has the Prime Minister or any other member of the Government received an intimation from that hon. gentleman of his desire or intention to tender his resignation?


Arthur Meighen: the ministry; the Speaker made the reply, possibly in the ordinary way, but this is the circumstance to which I wish to draw the attention of my right hon. friend. He was sitting in his seat, the chief whip, the hon. member for Grey North, and the other witness to this document, the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Whidden), were both in their seats when the Speaker of this House made that statement respecting the resignation of the hon. member for St. Antoine. On March 4, you, Mr. Speaker, were permitted, in the presence of those gentlemen, to say that the hon. member for St. Antoine had not resigned his seat, and all the time there was in the possession of the chief whip the declaration of that hon. gentleman to which the chief whip had himself been a witness on February 14.


Mr. MIDDLEBRO:: My hon. friend has made a misstatement. That resignation which was handed to the Speaker, I suppose, later on, was not in my hands more than two minutes. The hon. member for St. Antoine one day came to my seat in this House and presented me with that resignation, saying: "I am going overseas; I want to have my resignation witnessed; I am going to send it in later on." I know nothing more about it than it was sent later on. It was signed in blank; the date was blank, and he was to use it as he saw fit.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What was the date when the resignation was handed to my hon. friend?


William Sora Middlebro: I do not know the date. He just came to me when I was in my seat in the House during last session. He came over to me and the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Whidden) with it all drawn out; the date was left in blank; it was witnessed in blank, and he took it away.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That only
makes the case worse than ever. The statement we now have is that during last session of Parliament the chief whip received from the hon. member for St. Antoine his resignation.


Arthur Meighen: Nonsense.


William Sora Middlebro: It was not left with me. He simply came to me and said: "I am going to. resign."-he did not say when- "Will you and Dr. Whidden kindly sign this?" We sat down in a seat here and we signed it. It was in blank. I gave it back to him. It was the property of the hon. member to do what he pleased with it.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Perhaps the hon. member will now explain to the House how the document came to be dated February 14-witnessed February 14 of the present year.


William Sora Middlebro: I suppose the hon. member for St. Antoine has a perfect right to date that document whenever he pleases.


Ernest Lapointe: And you to assert yourself as witnessing his signature on February 14.


William Sora Middlebro: My hon. friend
knows better than that. He knows the date was blank.


Ernest Lapointe: But it is stated in the document.


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: Order. I
would remind hon. members that the leader of the Opposition has the floor.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Let me direct the attention of the House to what is stated in the declaration of the hon. member for St. Antoine:
Given under my hand and seal at Ottawa, this fourteenth day of February, A.D. 1921.
Witness, W. S. Middlebro.
Witness, Howard P. Whidden.
Now there is something false in that statement according to what my hon. friend has just told us. Either he did not witness that document on February 14, or he did. He tells us now that he did not witness it on February 14, but that he witnessed it last session. Now the question I wish to ask my right hon. friend the Prime Minister is this:	Where
was that document from that time until the day on which this Parliament opened? I say that my right hon. friend owes it to this House, when he gets up to speak in reply to what I am now saying, to clear away this mystery completely. He owes it to his own reputation, and to the honour of members of this House, and the honour of the hon. member for St. Antoine. This document is dated February 14. Now that date is significant. That is the day on which this Parliament opened, and when Parliament opened on February 14, how does it come that this document signed that day never reached the Speaker's hands until March 17? Will my right hon. friend tell the House in frankness and candour, when he rises to speak, where that document was in the meantime? Some one must know. The chief whip waives responsibility in the matter, but the Prime Min-

ister cannot waive it. He owes it to his position to tell the House where that document was in the meantime.
May I add this further. I am informed, and I believe credibly, that on the night of the division on the Address my hon. friend the chief whip on the Government side sought to have the member for St. Antoine paired with an hon. member on this side of the House, notwithstanding that he knew that that resignation was already signed by Sir Herbert Ames. I asked my right hon. friend the Prime Minister when I brought this matter up in the House, tvho was responsible for having withheld this important document from you, Mr. Speaker, for over a month, from February 14 until March 17?
The Prime Minister made no reply to that question whatever. He evaded it altogether, and confined his remarks to generalities respecting what in his view might have happened to the resignation in the meantime.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at Eight o'clock.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, when the House rose at six o'clock we had been discussing the several vacancies existing in this chamber, and the lack of popular representation ensuing as a consequence. We were referring more particularly to the vacancy in the electoral district of St. Antoine, in the City of Montreal. I think I express the feeling of the House when I say that we had had the somewhat painful disclosure that on March 3, the Prime Minister had conveyed to this House the impression that the member for St. Antoine had not tendered his resignation as a member of the Canadian Parliament and further permitted that impression to be confirmed by you, Mr. Speaker, on March 4, by allowing you to state from the Chair as 'a positive fact, that the resignation of Sir Herbert Ames as the member for St. Ahtoine had not been tendered. There was the further circumstance that all of the time there was in existence, and in the possession of someone, a signed declaration by the hon. member, dated at Ottawa on February 14, in which the hon. member formally tendered his resignation as a member of this House. More remarkable still, Mr. Speaker,
was the disclosure made, in the course of discussion, by the chief whip of the Government party to the effect that he, himself, together with one of his colleagues, witnessed the resignation of the member for St. Antoine as long ago as the last session of Parliament. That would bring the resignation, as made out by Sir Herbert Ames, to a date prior to July 1, 1920, when Parliament prorogued. Now what the Government whip has stated in that connection is borne out by the statement of Sir Herbert Ames himself which was read in this House during an earlier debate. Speaking in London, England, on July 21, 1920, before the Empire Parliamentary Association during an address on "The Dominion and the League of Nations," Sir Herbert Ames made this statement:
Now, I have just returned from a hurried visit to Canada. Mr. Balfour has alluded to the double capacity which I occupied at that time, and for the moment still occupy. For sixteen years I have been the representative of Western Montreal in the Canadian House of Commons. My resignation is in the hands of the Speaker because I have found that my new work is quite enough to occupy all the time and attention that I am capable of giving to it.
In other words, Sir Herbert Ames made the statement, in London, on July 21, 1920, that his resignation was in your hands, Mr. Speaker. My hon. friend, (Mr. Middlebro) tells us that when Sir Herbert Ames visited this House during a preceding session-that is prior to July 1, of last year-he made out his resignation and it was witnessed by two hon. members of this House. Under these circumstances, we have a right to assert, notwithstanding any language that may be used by hon. gentlemen opposite in the way of evasion or trying to circumvent the real issue, that a vacancy has existed in the electoral district of St. Antoine ever since July of last year. Sir, the important point is not whether hon. gentlemen opposite did this or did that with a particular resignation which was placed in their hands, not whether the Government for its own reasons inserted a date which served its particular purpose- but the real question at issue in this matter is, the right of the people of the electoral district oi St. Antoine to be represented in Parliament. They have been defrauded of that right by virtue of the action of hon. gentlemen opposite.


Arthur Meighen: Does the hon. gentleman say that resignation was placed in the hands of any member of the Government?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I must leave it to my right hon. friend to explain the circumstances.


Arthur Meighen: If the hon. gentleman
does not say that, why does he assert that the electors were defrauded of representation by the action of any member of the Government?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My reason is that the hon. member who had been representing that riding made the public statement in London that he had tendered.his resignation. Sir Herbert Ames himself was the one person who knew what his motives were and what he intended to do; and if Sir Herbert Ames-a man of the highest [DOT]honour and integrity, I believe-said on July 21st, 1920, that he had tendered his resignation to the Speaker I, for one, believe that he intended his resignation to be in effect at that time or he would never have uttered the statement. I must leave it to my right hon. friend to extricate himself and his colleagues from the somewhat embarrassing, if not painful, position in which they have placed themselves.
Now what, among other' results, is the effect, Mr. Speaker, of the action of the Government in this matter? The law, which I quoted a few moments ago, requires that elections must be held within six months after the resignation of a member is in the hands of the Speaker and His Honour has issued his warrant for the issue of a new writ of election. Had the resignation been tendered, as Sir Herbert Ames said he believed it had been tendered in July, 1920, an election would have had to be held in the St. Antoine division of Montreal before the end of 1920, and we would have had in Parliament, at the beginning of this session and at the present time, some one representing that constituency instead of the electors of the riding being unrepresented as they now are.
But there is another consequence, Mr. Speaker, which I think, in some ways, is even more serious and unfortunate than the one I have just mentioned. In view of the attitude which the Government has taken and of the evasions of my right hon. friend, what are we to believe in regard to any other vacancies that may be existing at the present time? There is now, we believe, a vacancy in Leeds. We have every reason to believe that the right hon. member for Leeds (Sir Thomas White), having accepted an office of emolument under the Crown and being an honourable man, has, in his own estimation, no longer the right to a seat in this House. Indeed, we know

that ever since Parliament assembled the right hon. gentleman who formerly represented Leeds has not taken his seat here. I am right, I think, when I say that the former member for Leeds has been in Ottawa repeatedly during the time that Parliament has been in session-may I say that I believe he was in Ottawa to-day- but he has not entered this House or taken his seat here.
Under these circumstances, Mr. Speaker, we have a right to believe there exists in the mind of that hon. gentleman, just as there did in the mind of Sir Herbert Ames, the belief that his resignation should be given to this House, and that the electors of the constituency of Leeds as a consequence are entitled to other representation in Parliament. There may be in the pocket of some hon. gentleman opposite, handed to him by some other hon. gentleman to suit the partisan ends of the Government, the resignation of the hon. member for Leeds. We have a right to ask my right hon. friend when he speaks in reply to-night to state unequivocally whether in his opinion, as one holding the highest position of trust in the gift of this country, the constituency of Leeds is not entitled to have a representative in this Parliament at this particular session. In order that there may be no possible further evasion of the exact situation, let me quote the law on this subject. Section 15 of chapter 10 of the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1906, provides in part as follows:
If any member of the House of Commons accepts any office or commission....or performs any service for the Government of Canada or for any of the officers of the Government of Canada, for which any public money of Canada is paid or to be paid,... the seat of such member shall thereby be vacated, and his election shall thenceforth be null and void.
The preamble of the Act for the acquisition of the Grand Trunk railway, chapter 13 of the Statutes of 1920 provides that one of the parties to the agreement is called the Government; and clause 6 of this schedule, which forms part of the Act, provides:
That the value of. the stock of the Grand Trunk Railway company shall be determined by a board of three arbitrators, one to be appointed by the Government.
And the first sentence of clause 21 of the schedule reads as follows:
Each of the parties to this agreement shall pay its own costs of and in connection with the arbitration subsequent to the date of this agreement, including the remuneration of the arbitrator appointed by it.

I am informed that on July 9, 1920, the hon. member for Leeds, the right hon. Sir Thomas White, was by order in council appointed the Government arbitrator, to be remunerated by the Government for his services in that connection. As I mentioned to the House this afternoon, it has been impossible to secure from the Government any of the papers relating to this particular appointment, so that we on this side of the House are unable to tell the electors of Leeds whether they are legally represented in this Parliament or not. Under the circumstances, I say to my right hon. friend that he owes it to the electors of Leeds, he owes it to hon. members of this House, and he owes it to the people of this country to state unequivocally tonight whether the electors of Leeds are or are not at the present time unrepresented, and whether it is his intention, as the leader of the Government, to see that a by-election is brought on in that constituency as soon as possible, in order that their representation may be made good at the earliest possible moment.
That I may conclude with the several phases of this matter at this moment, let me say to my right hon. friend that we will not only expect him to make a statement in regard to the situation in the St. Antoino division in Montreal, and in regard to Leeds, which will be unequivocal in its terms, but that we will expect him also to state to this House whether or not he intends to allow the electors in the other constituencies where vacancies exist the right to have representation before the present session of Parliament is at an end. When, on March 3 of this year, I asked my right hon. friend about the vacancies in the several constituencies, I said:
May I ask my right hon. friend if he can inform Parliament when the writs will be issued for by-elections to fill the vacancies that exist in the constituencies of Yamaska, Quebec; York-Sunbury, New Brunswick; Medicine Hat, Alberta; and West York, Ontario?
Right Hon. Arthur Meighen: I am able fully to conform to precedent in that regard, and to tell my hon. friend that the writs will be issued in due course.	.
Mr. Mackenzie King: May I ask my right hon. friend if the writs will be issued simultaneously, or at different times?
Mr. Meighen: That will appear when the writs are issued.
As Prime Minister of this country my right hon. friend has a great responsibility and a solemn trust imposed upon him, and as part of that responsibility and of that trust it is his duty to take this House and
the people of Canada into his confidence in very considerable measure, on matters of great public concern, and in this connection to state at the present time in a frank, open and straightforward manner what he intends to do in order to give these constituencies their rights to representation. I need not draw the attention of the House to the circumstance that virtually every answer that my right hon. friend has made this session in regard to this matter has been in the nature of an evasion. We expect from now on that he will take a little more care as to the manner in which he makes his replies to hon. members on this side of the House and that he will give the country through Parliament the information to which it is justly entitled.
I presume that when my right hon. friend does reply he will take refuge as regards the answers which he has made in a retort to the effect that having fooked up previous records he finds that other administrations were not over hasty in filling vacancies from time to time. Any comparison made with the conduct of previous administrations has not a true parallel in the present instance. So far as I am aware there never has been a condition quite the same as that which now exists in this Parliament. I do not recall any government that has ever held on to office so tenaciously in violation of the pledges by which it had obtained power. Moreover, I think my right hon. friend will find on looking up the records, at least during the period of the Liberal administration, that there never was a time when the fate of the administration hung on the thread of the possible outcome of a series of by-elections, as I think is the case with his administration to-day. Nor, indeed, has there ever been a time in the history of the country when the problems demanding solution at the hands of Parliament were as vast as the problems which confront us at the present time. We have a series of problems arising out of the war as a result of which colossal sums of money are being asked for by the Government in appropriations amounting to almost $600,000,000. No previous administration, I think, prior to the time that hon. gentlemen opposite took office ever asked much beyond, if indeed, it came to a total of, $100,000,000 by way of annual appropriations. With these serious matters confronting Parliament it is of the utmost importance that every constituency should be represented in this House and that the best intelligence possible should be brought to bear on their solution.

In conclusion, let me say, Mr. Speaker, that the one fact above every other which is causing concern to the people of this country is how they are going to meet the vast expenditures which hon. gentlemen opposite are subjecting the country to. It is true that the Government has given us very little in the way of a legislative programme for the present session. Indeed, that programme is as sparse as it can possibly be, save in one particular, and there it is prolific enough. The particular to which I refer is the colossal amount of money which the Government expects this House to vote, and which the people will be obliged to bear in taxation during next year. When the Government is asking appropriations of $576,000,000, which will probably run into $600,000,000 or $700,000,000 before this session is over, if the Government bring down Supplementary Estimates such as they did last session-and that vast sum does not include a single cent set aside for paying off the war debt, amounting to a couple of billion dollars-when there is an appropriation for our railroads alone amounting to $167,000,000; when the Government proposes, as we are led to understand, further indirect taxation through the revisions that they are about to make in the tariff-there are, I think, Mr. Speaker, the strongest reasons why the electors in -every riding should have the right to have their voice heard in this Parliament at this particular session, and for that reason I beg to move, seconded by my hon. friend for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding):
That as respects the motion before the House all the words after the word "that" be struck out and the following substituted therefor: "The House is of the opinion that representation in Parliament being a fundamental right of the people, writs should be issued at once to fill the existing vacancies in- the House of Commons, and that polls should be held at the earliest possible time so as to ensure representation of all constituencies during the present session of Parliament."


Arthur Meighen: Mr. Speaker, I am sure if any improvement of character or conduct on my part could be looked for as a result of the scolding from the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King), I rise very much chastened and purified by it. I recognize the privilege of being given lessons in candour and honesty and frankness at the hands of my hon. friend.
I would indeed profoundly regret if any default on my part were responsible for the rather unseemly bickering to which the House has been treated this afternoon.

I have read again the various reference to which my hon. friend has alluded. I have read the questions asked me, and the replies, and I say first of all that I am conscious of no error whatever, however slight, however negligible, as affecting the accuracy of a single reply, nor am I conscious of having withheld from him or from Parliament anything that it was my obligation, or even my right, to give as a member of the Government and of this House. The hon. member has chosen this occasion-it is very rarely if ever that the House is moved into Committee of Supply without some attempt being made to delay almost indefinitely the deliberations of Parliament in Supply-he has chosen this occasion, to move a resolution demanding that all vacancies be immediately filled by by-elections, but he has used it mainly to revamp some difficulties he finds in connection with the resignation of a private member of this House and to try to give rise throughout the country to the idea that the Government of Canada is responsible for the time or the method in which a private member of this House chooses to put in his resignation. The Government of Canada is responsible for the advice it gives the Crown in relation to public affairs; the time and the method of a resignation is the responsibility of the member concerned. Sir Herbert Ames was quite capable of discharging that responsibility, and he discharged it. He was capable of getting advice from any source he chose, and those giving it are responsible to him for that advice.
Now, the hon. gentleman complains that information misleading Parliament has been given. I have often been sorry that my hon. friend seemed utterly incapable of reasoning carefully on any set of facts. I do not presume he intends to throw out intimations to the House and to the country that are inconsistent with the facts. If he would reason carefully on the facts we would not come to these rather disagreeable incidents in this House,-there is no necessity for it. Much less would we ever reach the time when the accusation of falsehood would be lightly thrown across the floor of Parliament. I do not know whether it was his intention to create the impression that something I had given this House was false, but in the plainest language and apparently without even a moment of reflection he hurls at my hon. friend from North Grey an accusation of falsehood. I do not think that any hon.

member of this House on either side would even in his heart conceive the hon. member for North Grey capable of misleading Parliament or of uttering a falsehood to this House.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I made no reference of any kind reflecting upon the hon. member for North Grey-none whatever.


Arthur Meighen: Well, the facts are
these: the hon. member quoted from the resignation and quoted from what he said was the assertion of the hon. member for North Grey as a witness to that resignation; he then referred to his statement in Parliament and said that one or the other was false. I do not know whether he conceives that that reflects on the member for North Grey. If he does not, it is only another illustration of what I referred to a moment ago,-my hon. friend's utter incapacity for reasoning on any set of facts.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Arthur Meighen: What is bothering hon. gentlemen opposite? On what ground did the leader of the Opposition hurl that accusation across the floor of this House? He quoted from a resignation signed by Sir Herbert Ames dated February 14 of this year, a resignation witnessed by the hon. member for North Grey and the hon. member for Brandon, and, reading the attestation clause-"Given under my hand and seal at Ottawa this Fourteenth day of February, A.D. 1921," signed as witnesses to the signature of Sir Herbert Ames by Mr. Middlebro and Mr. Whidden-he asserted that it was false to affirm that that was signed on February 14. Now, the hon. leader of the Opposition has, whenever it has suited him, when he thought it would pander to the prejudices of an audience, been in the habit of complaining about too many lawyers elected to this House.


An hon. MEMBER:: That is right.


An hon. MEMBER:: Shame.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Order.


Arthur Meighen: One cannot help noting that surrounded as the hon. gentleman is in Parliament he very carefully refrains from making that complaint in this House. I have often regretted that the hon. member had not at least some little acquaintance with law; it would save him a lot of trouble. It would not require more than two days of the five years of the study of
law required in most provinces for the hon. gentleman to acquaint himself with the fact that the signature of witnesses is a signature attesting the authenticity of the signature to the document. The witnesses by signing say that that is an authentic signature; they saw him sign. They do not attest the fact that it was signed on the day on which the instrument is dated.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Arthur Meighen: Hon. members say "oh, oh"; and I heard a lawyer like the member for Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe), when the. leader of the Opposition was on his feet, applaud him with a huzzah the utterance of that sentiment.


Ernest Lapointe: Yes, and I am sorry the Prime Minister of Canada is of another opinion.


Arthur Meighen: Take, by way of illustration, the case of a legal document signed by two, three, or four parties, some of them living in different cities. Is there not one date to the document? Yet is it not essential that one sign on one day and another on another? Do the witnesses assert when they sign as of a certain date that the document was signed by all on the same day? Why, the merest tyro knows that is not the case.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Mr. McMASTER:: No.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Order.


Arthur Meighen: What is the hon. member talking about? Does the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) wish to dispute that? Does he mean to assert that a witness affirms, when there is a date to a document, that it was signed on the date of the document?


Andrew Ross McMaster: Suppose a man signed as witness to a will dated as of a certain day. Does my right hon. friend mean to say that it is not important to have the date on it? It is a sort of dying request.


Arthur Meighen: This will illustrate what the hon. gentleman's ingenuity amounts to. He knows that a will has a special attestation clause in which it is specifically asserted that the witnesses saw the person sign on the date of the will. Indeed, the law in our province calls for that, and I am pretty sure the law of Ontario does. But for hon. members to state in this House that a witness to a document is a witness to anything more than the authenticity of the signature is

to talk nonsense. Does the hon member say that it was the duty of the hon. member for Grey North (Mr. Middlebro), or the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Whid-den), to see that the date was filled in at the time they signed the document? The law does not call for any date at all.


Andrew Ross McMaster: They had a right to do so.


Arthur Meighen: That is the business
of Sir Herbert Ames. It is the business of Sir Herbert Ames to decide when his resignation shall come to Mr. Speaker, and the time he chooses and the method he chooses for doing so are matters within his own concern. It is for him to choose them, and in the choosing of them the Government of this country has no responsibility whatever. Sir Herbert Ames did not leave his resignation with any member of this Government. I told the House that he left it with a friend of his, and he did; but the resignation becomes a resignation when it reaches you, Mr. Speaker, as every hon. member knows. The hon. member for Prince, P.E.I. (Mr. Mackenzie King) would seem to think that Sir Herbert Ames was bound, the moment he wrote out his resignation, to tender it at once to you, Sir. He can choose the time he tenders it; he did choose the time; he chose the method; and whether or not the person to whom he confided it carried out his instructions is a matter between that person and Sir Herbert Ames. The hon. member asks me, as leader of the Government, to tell him what method Sir Herbert Ames adopted, to tell him what the custodian of Sir Herbert Ames' resignation did. That is a matter concerning Sir Herbert Ames, and 1 will so continue to tell my hon. friend as long as he asks the question. I am responsible for what I do as leader of the Government. The Government is responsible for the advice it gives to the Crown and for the conduct of public affairs. Sir Herbert Ames is responsible for the time he resigns and the method he takes for resigning, and if anybody, no matter who he is, were he a member of the Government or anybody else, advises him in that regard, for that advice no one is responsible and no one is answerable to the leader of the Opposition or to this House; the man is answerable to the person to whom he gives the advice. Sir Herbert Ames chose the channel by which his resignation should reach the Speaker, and he had a right to do so. My hon. friend reads a report-I do not know what 
it is from; I presume it is a newspaper report of a speech made by Sir Herbert Ames, supposed to have been made in London on July 21, 1920, in which he asserted that his resignation was in the Speaker's hands. I never saw the report; I do no know whether he made the speech or not.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Arthur Meighen: Hon. members may think it clever to laugh. I do not know what is laughable about the matter. If the hon. member (Mr. Lapointe) has anything clever to say to this House, he will have an opportunity of standing on his feet and doing so when I am through. I know, if Sir Herbert Ames made that statement-I can scarcely think he made it, because I know he was aware of the fact- he made it before the date on which he handed his resignation to the custodian. I venture to give that information to the House. It was after that date that his resignation was handed to the custodian and limitations placed upon the time at which it would be handed to Mr. Speaker. I do not know what mystery there is about this matter. Has Sir Herbert Ames not the rights of an ordinary member? Can he not choose his agent, his time, his method? That right he had; that right he exercised, and for the exercise of it he is responsible.
Now let me come to the subject matter of this resolution. The hon. member says that six seats, are vacant, and he demands that before we go into Supply, the Government be instructed that all those writs must be issued, and right away, because very great harm is going to be done to the constituencies and to the country if those writs are not issued immediately.


Mr. EDWARDS:: May I ask whether in the six seats he includes one of the two held by the hon. member for Gaspe and Maisonneuve (Mr. Lemieux) ?


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman is very silent on that. I may refer to that subject later. No, he referred to the seat held by the hon. member for Leeds. Although he reviled lawyers, he was not at all the first to stand in the House and argue, as a matter of law, that that seat was vacant. I do not know how far his legal opinion will be accepted by hon. members; but at all events, he gave it for what it is worth. Not only that, but he abuses me because I refuse to give my legal opinion. The hon. member has moved in this

House for the papers relating to Sir Thomas White's appointment as arbitrator in the Grand Trunk arbitration. That motion passed this House; those papers the hon. member has a right to; those papers he shall have. Necessarily,, in the preparation of that file-because this is only one of a great number of resolutions that pass Parliament-some time must be taken. Only a little over two weeks have passed since the resolution was passed by this House; it will not be very long until the papers are brought down; and I may tell the hon. member now that, when that correspondence is brought down, it will contain the opinion of the Department of Justice as to the tenure of the seat by Sir Thomas White. It is the opinion of the Department of Justice by which this Government is governed, and that will he known to Parliament in the usual way by bringing down the papers. That will be of more value to the House than any opinion of any individual member, however eminent in law he may be.


Mr. JACOBS:: Will it be more valuable than the opinion of the Minister of Justice himself, who is a member of this House?


Arthur Meighen: The Minister of Justice is head of the Justice Department; but the law officers under the Minister of Justice are the officers that are followed in public business, and it is their opinion, not necessarily that of the Minister of Justice, to which the House in answer to that motion is entitled.
The resolution states that a writ must be issued immediately for each of the vacancies that now exist, applicable only to the five that undoubtedly do exist, the constituencies of Yamaska, Quebec; York-Sunbury, N.B.; Medicine Hat, Alberta; West York, Ontario, and St. Antoine, Montreal. The first observation I wish to make is this: Two sessions ago this Parliament altered the law with regard to the issue of writs for by-elections. Prior to that time, under the law of the land, it had been left entirely to the Government of the day to determine when it was in the public interest that by-elections should be brought on and writs issued, and no limitation at all was placed upon the discretion of the Government in that regard. In the session of 1919, Parliament altered that by special statute, by which Parliament declared that writs should be issued within six months after the receipt by the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery of a warrant for the issue of a new writ for the
election of a member of the House of Commons. That is to say, the discretion that Parliament had theretofore granted the Government, an unlimited discretion, was specifically limited to six months after the receipt by the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery of the notification of a vacancy. Why Parliament so acted, the debate at the time pretty clearly shows. It appears that the subject matter of the Bill had been referred to the Committee on Privileges and Elections. The committee reported the Bill in this form: it limited the discretion of the Government to six months in the case of all vacancies occurring otherwise than by resignation, but they took the view that it would not be well to limit the discretion of the Government at all in relation to vacancies arising out of resignation, because to do so would put it in the power of an individual member by the exercise of a mere idiosyncrasy or whim, to declare a seat vacant and bring on a by-election at any time he chose. Whether that recommendation of the committee was valid or not may be doubted, but at all events Parliament in considering it afterwards, came to the conclusion that there should be no exceptions, and enacted that the time within which the writ should be issued should be six months from the receipt by the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery of the warrant to issue a writ for the vacancy. That is the discretion now given to this Government and to all governments in this country. Does anybody know why the exercise of that discretion should be specially limited as regards this Government?
Has anybody heard any. reason why, after Parliament had so decided, this same Parliament should alter an Act, which has passed all its stages, upon the mere resolution of the leader of the Opposition? That is the orbit of discretion given the Government of the country. By what process of reasoning is this Government to be denied the exercise of that discretion while other governments are to be accorded it? Oh, the hon. member says, there are special circumstances; you are hanging on, he says, by a thread. He has been imagining that thread for quite a long while now; he has been giving interviews about it, making statements about it, making speeches in this House about it, but the "thread" still hangs, and it seems a pretty substantial thread; there are at least 25 strands strongly holding it together. How does

that affect the case anyway? Even were it so, how is that relevant to the argument? Did Parliament make an exception and say that discretion should only be exercised when the Government had a large slavish and reliable majority? If that had been the intention of Parliament, they would have said so. But Parliament placed no restriction; Parliament intended no restriction. Now, the hon. gentleman is fearfully outraged about the poor electors of St. Antoine, and of Yamaska and of York-Sunbury being denied representation in the House this session, and hp is seconded in this by the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding). He too is becoming very impatient, and is very anxious indeed that this process of non-representation, which in the longest case has continued for only three months, and in the shortest case for about three weeks be immediately stopped, or the fundamental rights of the electors are being ignored. Well, if the electors have fundamental rights to-day in this regard, they have had the same fundamental rights for fifty years or more in this country. They had the same fundamental rights when the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's was a member of the Government, and when the hon. member for Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe) was its enthusiastic supporter. The fundamental rights of the electors have not changed between then and now. Let me ask the hon. member: how is it that he is scandalized to think that three months should have elapsed in the longest case that now constitutes a vacancy in this House, when he was quite content to support a Government that allowed a whole year and nearly two years to elapse?


Ernest Lapointe: Will my right hon. friend wait a few moments for an answer, or does he want it now?


Arthur Meighen: I await it now-I took up his challenge, but he does not answer. Let me give the hon. member just a few cases. Starting back in 1897, shortly after hon. gentlemen opposite came into power, I find in the contituency of Champlain, Quebec-he will know about that-


Mr. BUREAU:: The Government ought to know too.


Arthur Meighen: Certainly they know about it. In that case three months elapsed. Next, three months elapsed in Colchester, Nova Scotia; four and a half

months in the case of Temiscouata, at the time the present hon. member for that constituency was elected.
Mr. CASGRAINi'It was worth waiting for.


Arthur Meighen: In that case the constituency waited from June 25, 1897, when the former member died, until the 6th day of November, 1897. Such was the outrage perpetrated on the people of Temiscouata, an outrage which hon. gentlemen opposite quite cheerfully assert was abundantly vindicated by the election of the present hon. member himself. I agree that my hon. friend is a creditable representative in this Parliament, and I know he will agree with me that the outburst of cheers of hon. gentlemen opposite at the assertion that it was all right to wait until he was elected is only another of a thousand proofs of the assertion that all their interest in this matter is politics, and party politics. It is not the electors of these constituencies they are concerned about at all: all they are concerned about is to gain some party advantage if they can, and it will only be a moment till I show you how they hope to gain it, if they are able to bring the House to their point of view at this time.
We go on to the case of Bagot, Quebec. Mr. Dupont died on March 12, 1898. There was no election in that county at all until December 14, 1898, or nine months and two days afterwards. What an outrage was perpetrated on the people of Bagot, an outrage to which the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's the seconder to this resolution, was a party:	Next is the case
of North Simcoe, where the late D'Alton McCarthy died on May 11, 1898, and where the election was deferred until December 14, 1898, or for seven months and three days. We pass unto Montmagny, Quebec. There the election was deferred for five months and seven days. We pass from that to West Huron, Ontario, where Mr. M. C. Cameron was appointed Lt. Governor of the North West Territories on May 30, 1898. The election in that case was deferred until February 21, 1899, nine months and twenty-five days after the vacancy occurred.
The next case is Chambly and Vercheres -'and this outrage was not at all redeemed by the election of the present hon. member. There the Hon. C. A. Geoffrion died on July 18, 1899. The election did not take place until January 18, 1900; six months elapsed in that case. That is only half

as long as one I read a moment ago, but twice as long as the worst case which noW outrages hon. gentlemen opposite at the present time.
Then I refer to the city of Winnipeg, which at that time was possibly the largest single member constituency in this Dominion, had the largest number of electors, and perhaps the greatest individual arid property interests. There Mr. Jamieson died on February 31, 1899, but the election did not take place until January 25, 1900, or practically one year after the death of the hon. member for Winnipeg. The next case is Lotbiniere, Quebec, Where five months elapsed. Then there is the case of	Sherbrooke, Quebec, where
six	and	one-third months elapsed.
Passing on to subsequent years, there is the case of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, when four months elapsed. There is the case of West Lambton, Ontario, in the same year, when five months elapsed; the case of Wentworth, Ontario, in the same year, when nine months elapsed; the case of the resignation of Mr. Walter Scott in 1906 for the constituency of West Assiniboia, when five months and six days elapsed; the case of Saskatchewan, North West Territory, in 1906, when five months elapsed; and later on, the case of East Elgin in 1906, when ten months elapsed, the resignation of Mr. Ingram taking place on December 8, 1905, the election being held on October 4, 1906. Then there is the case of the Hon. Peter White, who died on May 3, 1906, having represented the constituency of North Renfrew, and for whom no successor was elected until October 9, of the same year. There is the case of Quebec county, Quebec, when there was a lapse of four and a half months. In the case of St. Mary, Montreal, in 1906, four months elapsed; in the case of Victoria in New Brunswick, when the Hon. John Costigan was summoned to the Senate, four months elapsed. In the case of St. John city and county, in 1907, six months and three days elapsed; in. the case of London, Ontario, in 1907, six and a half months elapsed; in the case of East Northumberland in the same year, seven and two-thirds months elapsed; in the case of North Wellington, Ontario, in the same year, seven and a half months elapsed. And so on, down the list. I doubt whether there is one single year in the whole time that hon. gentlemen opposite were in power when there were not cases -or, numbers of cases-in which twice the time, or almost twice the time, elapsed that has elapsed in the most extreme case of which those gentlemen complain to-day.
The hon. member says: But this is a very important session; we must have a lot of money this session. Well, it is an important session. But it was not wrong at all in those days to deprive constituencies of representatives for a whole year; and I have a case here where they were deprived for a far longer time; indeed, where no election was held at all until the general elections came on. That was all right then, but for this Parliament it is a heinous political offence that any election should be deferred. But for this difference the hon. member gives the reason that this is an important session. Why, it is only a few weeks since the hon. gentleman was out on the stump, indeed since he spoke in this House, and said that we had no right to legislate at this session at all because this Parliament was defunct-


An hon. MEMBER:: So it is.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Arthur Meighen: -and that it should not exist; so the reasoning of the hon. gentleman is that it is entirely right and proper to deny constituencies their representation in a good Parliament for a year or two, but that it is wholly wrong to deny them representation in a defunct Parliament for three months. Mr. Speaker, the fact is that this Parliament, except in the imagination of the leader of the Opposition, and perhaps in that of some other hon. gentlemen opposite, is in precisely the same position as all other parliaments. In this Parliament, precisely as in all other parliaments, constituencies have a right to be represented; the same right, no greater and no less. In this Parliament, the Government has the same discretion as to the issuance of writs as has always existed, save as restrained by legislation passed two years ago; and in this, as in every previous Parliament, the Government intends to exercise the discretion reposed in it by Parliament, subject only to the restraint Parliament has imposed, and not to the whim of any hon. gentleman, whether he be the leader of the Opposition or not. Now, there is another consideration that does especially weigh at this time. Parliament now in session has possibly two months more in which to sit, possibly longer. I believe it is the anticipation of hon. members on both sides that we may be able to get through towards the end of May, or early in June. Nothing will be done by the Government to hurry matters through, or in any way to constrain Parliament in the consideration of public questions. Nothing of that nature will be done



at all. But it is the common anticipation that Parliament will get through in the time I have suggested. An election called now could not be held until about the middle of May, under the law passed by this Parliament; and there would be but a very short time in which any candidate who might be returned could sit in this Parliament this session. But more than that, when by-elections are on it is the duty of hon. members on both sides to see that the case from their point of view is presented as fully as possible to the electors concerned Under present conditions what do we find? We find that hon. gentlemen opposite, within their legal right, have adopted the policy of refusing pairs. The courtesy of pairs is a tradition with Parliament, but it has been refused by hon. gentlemen directly opposite, not, I am glad to say, by hon. gentlemen of the Agrarian party. That is the course which hon. gentlemen opposite have pursued within the exercise of their right. Under the rules of this House hon. gentlemen may bring on a debate at any time on any subject of their choosing. They may precipitate a motion to adjourn; they may challenge the Government on motions that are not debatable, and which consequently may be brought on at any moment, in respect of which a decision cannot at all be delayed. Consequently they have the privilege of having their members present, by concert and agreement among themselves, choosing the time to suit their own convenience. Perhaps hon. gentlemen on this side might be away, necessarily engaged in the presentation of issues before the electors where a by-election was being held. But the courtesy of pairs has been refused, and while they refuse it hon. gentlemen opposite say to us: Go to the country with your by-elections; let your members go out there; and when they are away we will not give pairs, hut we shall have our members away or here just as we want them. We shall choose the time for a vote, and by that means shall get a snap verdict and thereby obtain some glory throughout the country. That, I think, is what is in the back of the head of the leader of the Opposition.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Bring on
your by-elections and we will give pairs.


Arthur Meighen: Now, these resolutions come on with a minimum of notice. Of this one I received notice forty minutes before the meeting of the House this afternoon; and another I received this afternoon I got half an hour's notice of. It is

the privilege of hon. gentlemen opposite to take that course; but it is also the privilege of the Government to take a similar course. I have never pursued that course. Every evening before adjournment we have given the House a statement of what the Government intends shall be taken up the next day. We are not strictly bound to do that, we do it as a matter of courtesy, as advancing the interests of Parliament. I think hon. gentlemen opposite owe us the same courtesy, of giving us notice when these things are about to come on; and I do think that they should not pursue a course that is calculated to enable them to take the Government at a disadvantage when hon. members on this side might be away from the House. I do not think they should urge, under the rules of the House, the adoption of a resolution which is designed for the purpose I have stated.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: If my hon.
friend will permit me, I might say that it was not until one o'clock to-day that a few of us who happen to be sitting side by side decided that this amendment would be moved this afternoon. As soon as that decision was reached, I wrote a letter with my own hand to my right hon. friend and sent it over by special messenger to his office. As a matter of fact, he was informed long before hon. members on this side of the House knew anything about the matter. Besides, this is the only day this week we have of presenting these matters.


Arthur Meighen: Not at all. What my
hon. friend says I do not dispute. He may have written me as soon as he knew of the decision to bring this matter up; but that does not help me in any way. Notice did not reach me until twenty minutes after two o'clock.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: It was sent
to my right hon friend's office.


Arthur Meighen: Very well; but it is when the notice reaches me, just as it is when a resignation reaches the Speaker, that counts. It would not be a very good answer for the Government to say when the House was adjourning at night: "We have not decided what to take up to-morrow. We will likely decide that to-morrow at 2 o'clock, and then we will send a notification to the leader of the Opposition as to what it is." My hon. friend would not regard that as a very good answer on my part.
There was nothing to hinder this resolution from being taken up any day after my

hon. friend had placed it on the Order Paper.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My right hon. friend will permit me to say that when we adjourned for Easter-*


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Order. The hon. gentleman has no right to the floor. He has already spoken, and I stretched the rule in his favour a moment ago.


Arthur Meighen: All I am seeking to impress upon the hon. member is that these amenities work both ways, and that when we on this side observe them-and we try to do so to the best of our ability-we expect the same consideration from hon. gentlemen opposite. If this amendment were to pass-and I have not the slightest apprehension that it will because it is not at all fair-it is not based on fairness, or the idea of fairness-it would not only deny to the Government the discretion that Parliament gave it by statute, but the discretion that this Parliament intends that other governments shall exercise in the future. It would not only do that but it would compel a course which, in the conduct of the business of the House and under its rules as they stand to-day, would put the Government at a disadvantage which it does not deserve. Therefore it seems to me that the amendment should not pass. Why should such a motion be moved as an amendment to the resolution to go into Committee of Supply? Why cannot the amendment be placed on the Order Paper as a resolution the same as any other motion? This is a matter of general public concern. This is a matter that seeks to get the opinion of Parliament on a subject which Parliament has already dealt with through the regular process of a statute. Surely that is something that should be brought to the attention of Parliament in the regular course, and not by way of an amendment to the motion to go into Committee of Supply.


An hon. MEMBER:: What is his reason for moving it?


Arthur Meighen: Well, that is for the hon. gentleman himself, or some one on his side, to state. I can only leave hon. gentlemen to divine the reason as best they can. We all know what amendments to the motion to go into Committee of Supply are; and I have heard it stated by the leader of the Government before 1911, that though an opposition might move the Ten Commandments in amendment to the motion to go into Committee of Supply they
83S
could not expect that those Ten Commandments would be affirmed by the Government when they were proposed in such a manner. It seems to me that my hon. friend has chosen this method in order to get the advantage that would result from an amendment to the motion to go into Committee of Supply, because no amendment can be made to it-it must be taken as it is or not at all. I therefore appeal to hon. members to vote down this amendment in fairness to themselves, in fairness to the Government of the day, in fairness to the Government in future years, and in fairness to Parliament for all time.


Ernest Lapointe: The right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Meighen) said in his opening remarks that after the castigation administered by the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) he was'chastened and improved. I am afraid that his good resolutions were of short duration, and that he has quickly succumbed to his usual bad habits. Taking his last observation first, he complains that the notice of the intention of the leader of the Opposition to move his motion was only sent him at one o'clock this afternoon, or rather at two twenty o'clock. It is not the fault of the leader of the Opposition that the notice was not received by my right hon. friend until that hour, because the notice was sent at one o'clock. Although the right hon. gentleman complains about that proceeding, he himself at twelve o'clock sent to the leader of the Opposition a letter which reads as follows:
Ottawa, March 29, 1921.
Dear Mr. King,-Mr. Ballantyne proposes to make to-day his statement regarding the operations of the Canadian Mercantile Marine. He will make it on the motion to go into supply.
Tours faithfully,
Arthur Meighen.
Now what is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander. Is it any worse for the leader of the Opposition to notify the Prime Minister that he intends to mave an amendment on the motion to go into Committee of Supply this afternoon, than it is for the Prime Minister to notify the leader of the Opposition that the statement as to operations of the Canadian Mercantile Marine will be proceeded with the same afternoon?


Arthur Meighen: Will the
hon. gentleman permit me a question? Does he not see the difference


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The Prime Minister is distinctly in order in submitting his question, and if hon. gentlemen would permit the Chair to exercise its jurisdiction in maintaining order the results would be much more satisfactory.


Ernest Lapointe: I am quite willing to permit the right hon. gentleman to ask any question, but I am told he has just refused the leader of the Opposition the privilege of doing so.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The hon. gentleman is
quite in error. The leader of the Opposition rose for the third time to make a statement which he had no right to do; he did not offer to ask a question.


Arthur Meighen: I was going to ask my hon. friend if he does not see the distinction between a statement as to the Canadian Mercantile Marine shipbuilding, a statement placed on Hansard so that hon. members may study it-just as in the case of the statement regarding the operations of the national railways-and a challenge to the Government by way of an amendment to go into Committee of Supply. To the first no study is needed on the part of hon. members.


Ernest Lapointe: The difference I see is that in the one case we are dealing with the Canadian Mercantile Marine involving the expenditure of many hundreds of millions of dollars, and in the other case with the holding of by-elections in this country. Now, I desire to read the amendment which has been offered by the leader of the Opposition. I wish to draw the attention of all hon. members to its language and to ask them if they can vote against the principle enunciated in it:
The House is of the opinion that representation in parliament being a fundamental right of the people, writs should be issued at once to fill existing vacancies in the House of Commons, and that polls should be held at the earliest possible time so as to ensure the representation of all constituencies during the present session of Parliament.
I believe that this resolution should be accepted and I cannot see that any government, nor any parliament, can successfully challenge the principle which it enunciates -that it is the undoubted right of the Canadian people to be represented here during the present session of Parliament, as well as during other sessions. I think the constitutional doctrine in that respect cannot be successfully challenged. Parliament must reflect the sense of the whole country.

Every citizen of Canada has the right to his share in the making of legislation-in the selection of his representative in Parliament and in the formulation of the laws of this country. This principle cannot be successfully challenged for it is the essence of responsible government, and when there are here and there throughout the country constituencies that are not represented in the House, the whole country is interested in having those vacancies filled, because otherwise Parliament is like a leaning tower-lacking foundation at important points. This, I repeat, is the constitutional doctrine. It is the doctrine of freedom, it is the doctrine of liberty, and for such a doctrine people have fought and shed their blood in days gone by.
This doctrine is recognized in all other countries. What is the law in Great Britain with regard to the holding of by-elections? There the Government has no say in the matter. When a vacancy is created a motion is made in the House of Commons by the chief whip of the party to which the late member belonged for the issuing of the writ. The writ is issued forthwith and sent to the returning officer, who fixes the date of the nomination and of the polling. In 1920 an amendment was enacted to the Representation of the People Act, chapter 35, of 10-11 George V, in which it is provided:
The day fixed for nomination in boroughs shall not be later than the seventh day after the returning officer receives the writ. . . . The poll shall take place on such day as the returning officer may appoint, not being less than six or more than eight clear days after the date fixed for nomination.
The Government there has no choice in the matter. Further, it is enacted that any person who causes delay in the holding of a by-election is guilty of a misdemeanour. I wonder what my right hon. friend would do if he were guiding the destinies of Great Britain to-day?
And that doctrine has always been recognized in this country, of course. My right hon. friend resorted to the tu quoque argument. I was not surprised, for it is a pet argument with him. With all deference, let me tell him that the tu quoque argument at its very best is a despicable argument. It lacks in logic, it lacks in conviction, it lacks in good faith, it lacks in force. In a word, it is a worn out argument.


Arthur Meighen: What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.


Ernest Lapointe: I tell my right hon. friend that I am not using any tu quoque argument, nor do I intend to. I do not think that my hon. friend erred when he sent his notice this morning, no more than I think my hon. friend the leader of tl>e Opposition made a mistake when he sent his notice to the right hon. leader of the Government. So I am not using any tu quoque argument. But let me tell my right hon. friend that the men and women T>f this country to-day are not disposed to make permanent a wrong simply because it has been in existence. The majority of our people are not disposed to believe that a wrong becomes a right when it is done many times by succeeding governments or succeeding bodies. I wonder how progress could be achieved or reform accomplished in this or any other country if this doctrine, so dear to the heart of the right hon. Prime Minister, was the final doctrine accepted by our people. I will tell my right hon. friend that he is wrong when he uses the tu quoque argument. In the cases reported I think I am right in making the statement that the vacancies were filled in every instance before the opening of the succeeding session of Parliament. My right hon. friend shakes his head.


Arthur Meighen: There is no doubt about it.	|


Ernest Lapointe: There are no doubts about it in my mind; I am sure of my assertion.


Arthur Meighen: There are cases of
vacancies not being filled for over a year.


Ernest Lapointe: I have taken down the cases quoted by my right hon. friend, and in every instance the vacancies were filled prior to the succeeding session.


Arthur Meighen: You did not take them all down.	*


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order, order.


Ernest Lapointe: My right hon. friend may discard that with a wave of the hand as he discarded the Ames matter the other day. He may shake his head in contradiction of what I say, but he cannot prevent the facts remaining facts. In the session of 1908-and this will serve to show that the doctrine I have just alluded to is the recognized doctrine in this country-the former Prime Minister of Canada, who was then leader of the Opposition, the present
member for King's, N.S., introduced a bill to amend the House of Commons Act. I refer my right hon. friend to page 5226 of Hansard of the session 1907-1908.
Mr. R. K Borden (Carleton, Ont.) moved the second reading of Bill (No. 66) to amend the House of Commons Act. He said: Mr. Speaker, the object of this Bill is to provide that writs to fill vacancies in the House of Commons shall be issued within a certain period, and in that way to avoid the prolonged disfranchisement of constituencies which has sometimes occurred. The Bill is framed on practically the same line as that which has been in force in Ontario since the year 1904.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier spoke as follows:
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. friend (Mr. R. L. Borden) if he thinks, in view of the invariable practice that has been followed in this House since confederation, there is any necessity for such a Bill as this. If any vacancies have taken place during the recess these vacancies have always been filled before the ensuing session, and so far as I can remember no constituency has been left unrepresented, certainly not within the last ten or twelve years.
The member for King's, N.S., the then leader of the Opposition, did not deny that statement. He said:
If Parliament were to expire in a month or a few weeks, the House could be given power to direct that the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery should not in a particular instance carry this provision into effect. My recollection as to what has taken place is a li-ttle different from that of the right hon. gentleman, because I think the constituency of St. James, Montreal, was unrepresented for a whole session.
That was one instance.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier: Do you say St. James?
Mr. R. L. Borden: I am speaking from recollection, hut I remember there was at least one constituency in which the writs should have been issued much earlier than they were.
So the leader of the Opposition of that day, without being sure about it, said that he could recollect only one instance in which the writs had not been issued before the ensuing session.
Now, as to the necessity of holding byelections and having the vacant constituencies represented during all the sessions of Parliament, I shall quote from the remarks of the same gentleman, the then leader of the Opposition, at the same fusion of Parliament, 1908, as reported on page 7,862 of Hansard. The then government had introduced a Bill to amend the Elections Act and on the second reading of the Bill the hon. member for King's complained as follows:
There is no provision in this Bill for the holding of by-elections within a reasonable time, nor is it provided-

I desire to direct my right hon. friend's attention to these words of his former leader:
-nor is it provided that, where several byelections are pending, they shall all be held upon the same day.
The member for King's was and is of an opinion quite different from that entertained by the present leader of the Government in that respect. Last year the House emphasized the necessity of having all constituencies represented in Parliament by enacting a measure compelling the Government to hold by-elections within six months of the opening of the seat. Public opinion forced that law upon Parliament. I remember that when the Bill was moved for second reading one of the hon. gentlemen on the other side, a whip-the member for Annapolis (Mr. Davidson) if I am not mistaken-moved the adjournment of the debate, which in the ordinary course would have had the effect of killing the Bill. But public opinion compelled the Government to afford another opportunity for the discussion of the Bill in the House. The Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty) shakes his head, as if he had been the father of the Bill. He took great care last year to say on two or three different occasions that he was not responsible for the Bill; that the member for George Etienne Cartier (Mr. Jacobs) was responsible for it and that he, the minister, was simply giving an opportunity to the House.


Mr. DOHERTY:: I gave to the hon member for George Etienne Cartier full credit for the Bill, but the hon. member for Quebec East will not deny that had it not been for the co-operation I gave, even when the member for George Etienne Cartier was not in the House, to the extent of taking the Bill up and putting it through, the Bill could not have been got through. The hon. member for Quebec East is too fair, if he knows these facts, to follow upon the lines he has just started to take:	I
appeal to the member for George Etienne Cartier if what I am saying is not the simple fact.


Ernest Lapointe: I am quite ready to
admit that the Bill could not have been adopted without the co-operation of my right hon. friend, and without his willingness to let the Bill proceed as he did.


Charles Joseph Doherty: And in the absence of the sponsor of the Bill I took it up and put it through.


Ernest Lapointe: Yes, but what I want to state is that my right hon. friend at the 
same time took the trouble to say that he was not responsible for the Bill; that his part in putting the Bill though was simply to let the House have the opportunity of dealing with it.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Will the hon. gentleman read what I said? I did not repudiate responsibility. As I say, I was giving due credit for the Bill to the hon. member for George Etienne Cartier; I did not want to steal his thunder.


Ernest Lapointe: Very well. Then my hon. friend will say with me that it was the intention of the House that the by-elections should be held within a reasonable time ' after the vacancy occurred, and that the intent of the law was not as stated tonight by my right hon. friend the Prime Minister, who asserted that the provision in the Act for a delay of six months entitled the Government to delay the full extent of that period and to ignore the rights of a constituency to representation in Parliament, even though the by-election could have been held much sooner.
When that Bill was discussed in committee it was argued that the provision for a delay of sixty days which had been inserted originally in the Bill by the member for George Etienne Cartier was too short; that it had better be changed to six months in order that there might be sufficient time for the preparation of the lists. So the intention of Parliament was that the elections should be held immediately, or as soon as they could possibly be held, and the provision for a delay of not more than six months was inserted in order to obviate any possible objection in connection with the preparation of the lists.
There is another matter to which I wish to refer very briefly, the question of the resignation of the former member for St. Antoine. The Prime Minister said he was not aware that the member for St. Antoine had made a public statement in London in the month of July last to the effect that he had tendered his resignation. The right hon. gentleman said that this was probably a newspaper report, and expressed the belief that such words were not uttered by the former member for St. Antoine. Well, that "newspaper report" is the printed report of his speech; I hold it in my hand, and it is at the disposal of the right hon. Prime Minister. It is published by the Empire Parliamentary Association; 'surely the Prime Minister of Canada knows what the Empire Parliamentary Association is. The first stage of that pamphlet reads as follows:

Confidential. The Dominions and the League of Nations. An address by Sir Herbert Ames, M.P., (Canada), Financial Director in the Secretariat of the League of Nations, delivered at a Private meeting of Members of the Empire Parliamentary Association in the Home and Dominion Parliaments, in the Rooms of the Empire Parliamentary Association, Westminster Hall, on July 21, 1920. The Right Hon. Arthur J. Balfour, O.M., F.R.S., M.P., Lord President of the Council and Chairman of Executive Committee of the Empire Parliamentary Association (United Kingdom Branch), in the Chair. Issued under the Authority of the Empire Parliamentary Association (United Kingdom Branch), Westminster Hall, Houses of Parliament, London, S.W.I.
I suppose it is not necessary for me to read the names of the officers of the Empire Parliamentary Association as given in this pamphlet. Then, the reading matter preceding the report of the address is as follows:
A private meeting of the Empire Parliamentary Association was held in the rooms of the Association, Westminster Hall, on July 21, 1920, when Sir Herbert Ames, M.P. (Canada), Financial Director in the Secretariat of the League of Nations, delivered an address upon "The Dominion and the League of Nations." The Right Hon. Arthur J. Balfour, O.M., F.R.S., M.P., (Lord President of the Council and Chairman of Executive Committee of the Empire Parliamentary Association) occupied the chair, and there was a considerable attendance of members of the Association in the Lords and Commons and of visiting members of the Association from Dominion Parliaments.
The chairman, Mr. Balfour, introduced the speaker. I suppose it is not necessary for me to read his remarks; but I wish to read again this part of the speech of the former member for St. Antoine, and I shall now ask my right hon. friend whether he believes those words were uttered by Sir Herbert Ames or not.
My resignation is in the hands of the Speaker because I have found that my new work is quite enough to occupy all the time and attention that I am capable of giving to it.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: What is the date?


Ernest Lapointe: July 21, 1920. I shall be pleased to hand the book to my right hon. friend.


Arthur Meighen: I have never seen it. I have no doubt my hon. friend is reading it aright. All I have to say is that if Sir Herbert Ames said that, he was manifestly mistaken.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Shame.


Ernest Lapointe: My right hon. friend is modifying his position.


Arthur Meighen: Not at all.


Ernest Lapointe: My right hon. friend said a few minutes ago that he did not believe the hon. member for St. Antoine had made the statement. I took his words down at the time. Now he says that he has no doubt that those words were pronounced, but that Sir Herbert Ames was mistaken.


Arthur Meighen: I did not say that.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Arthur Meighen: I intend to state a point of order, notwithstanding the noise. I state that the hon. member has no right to misquote what I said, especially a moment after I said it. I said that I did not know whether he made the statement or not; I could scarcely believe that he did. I know the authority is very good. I said that I did not doubt the hon. gentleman was reading correctly; but there is on record the Speaker's word, which I do not think hon. gentlemen intend to challenge, to the effect that if the statement was made, it was a manifest error. I do not know what hon. members are trying to make out. If they believe that there was any breach of honour on the part of any member of the Government in this respect, let an hon. member, on his responsibility as a member of this House, make that statement.


Ernest Lapointe: Everything I state in this House is on my responsibility, and my right hon. friend may be sure that I continue to have that responsibility for everything I shall say to-night. Can the right hon. gentleman say that a gentleman of the standing of Sir Herbert Ames, who has represented St. Antoine, Montreal, in this House for so many years, who has been appointed by this Government as a chief officer in the League of Nations, could have made such a statement without the statement being true? That gentleman stated that his resignaion was in the hands of the Speaker. I have no doubt that it was not in the hands of the Speaker; but there was certainly an error, or a mistake, or call it what you like, somewhere, and that is what we would like to find out-


Arthur Meighen: You had better ask Sir Herbert Ames.


Ernest Lapointe: -especially under the circumstances which have surrounded the whole procedure. I do not want to dwell long on this question, although it is very interesting. I quite understand the right hon. gentleman cannot speak again, but I

should like to ask the hon. gentleman Who is going to follow me: who is the party who kept that resignation against the will of the hon. member for St. Antoine, because he expressed his formal will in that statement that his resignation should be in the hands of the Speaker. He said that it was in the hands of the Speaker. Who is the party who kept that resignation against the will of the hon. member for St. Antoine, while that hon. member was under .the impression that his resignation was in your hands, Sir? I will ask and call the attention of the House to this second point: how is it that the resignation should have been signed before the chief whip of the Government^ party and announced a few days later in the city of London by the hon. member who had written the resign-a^on? In all this, of course, I am quite willing to accept, and I do accept, the statement of the Prime Minister; but it seems a queer organization in the great Conservative party, that the chief whip should have witnessed the resignation of an important member; that this member should have announced his resignation^publicly in the city of London, and that the leaders of the party should know nothing about it. I will ask further: How is it that the gentlemen who signed that resignation as witnesses have certified that such resignation as witnesses have certified that such resignation was written on February 14? The	Prime Minister,	in his
very clever game of splitting hairs said that those gentlemen witnessed only the signature and nothing else, and everything was right.	He does not see anything
irregular in the matter. I will call the attention of the House to the language of the Statute. Section 5 of Chapter 11 of the Revised Statutes of Canada reads:
Any member of the House of Commons may resign his seat,-
(b>- By addressing- and causing to be delivered to the Speaker a declaration of his intention to resign his seat, made in writing under his hand and seal before two witnesses.
And so on. Not only must the signature be affixed before the' witnesses, but the resignation must be made in writing before the witnesses. Does my right hon. friend say that the date is not an important part of that writing?


Edmund James Bristol: Will my hon. friend sav, as a lawyer, that that section of the Act requires the date to be in the document at the time it was signed?


Ernest Lapointe: I certainly say that
as a lawyer.
lAIr. Lapointe.]


Edmund James Bristol: I do not think so.


Ernest Lapointe: I am quite willing to
discuss this with my hon. friend, even before the courts of Toronto. It is so clear that it does not require discussion. I am surprised that the Prime Minister of Canada should say, on his responsibility as a public man, that there is nothing irregular in that proceeding. I am surprised that he should allow that statement to go broadcast in this country of ours. He may say that he is not responsible for the irregularity;. he may say that he did not know anything that occured concerning that resignation; but I am at a loss to understand how the leader of the Government and the chief citizen of this country can say that everything is regular with regard to that.
There is another point which I desire to bring to the attention of the House. My right hon. friend was quite indignant at the language of the leader of the Opposition with regard to the answers of my right hon. friend to questions put in this House by hon. members on this side. What my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition said was that there was a lack of candour. On March 2, I read in this House, in the presence of my right hon. friend, the words of the former member for St. Antoine as I have read them tonight. I stated then-I had the pamphlet in my hand, and it was at the disposal of my right hon. friend-that this statement had been made by Sir Herbert Ames before the Empire Parliamentary Association in the month of July last. On March 3, in reply to a question put to my right hon. friend as to whether he was aware of any public declaration having been made by the hon. member for St. Antoine, he said as reported at page 506 of the unrevised Hansard:
I have seen no public declaration made by or on behalf of the hon. member for St. Antoine, nor have I received any communication that I can give to the House.
Surely my right hon. friend knew on March 3, that there had been a public declaration made by the hon. member for St. Antoine. I had read it on the preceding day, and my right hon. friend was here when I read the very words that I have read again to-day. Surely my right hon. friend will not deny that he was here facing me all the time when I spoke on the Address. Does he deny that?


Arthur Meighen: Well, the hon. member may have read it, and I may have been pretty busy. I did not hear him read

it. If he thinks that is a matter of very great consequence, I think he is magnifying a trifle. If he read it, all right; but I did not hear about it until the leader of the Opposition spoke. But what in the world is the difference?


Ernest Lapointe: May I refresh my
right hon. friend's memory? Does he remember that at the conclusion of my speech -the right hon. gentleman was then in his seat-Mr. Speaker rose and stated that in view of the statement I had read he felt it necessary to say that he had not received the resignation?


Arthur Meighen: I remember that.


Ernest Lapointe: Now, Mr. Speaker
could not possibly have said that if I had not repeated the statement of the hon. member for St. Antoine. Another queer circumstance in this matter Is this:	How
is it that February 4 should be recognized as the binding date on that document? How is it that this document having been in the hands of somebody on the other side of the House was kept for three or four weeks after the alleged signature on February 14, and especially until after the division on the Address in this House?


William Stevens Fielding: It was St. Valentine's
Day.


Ernest Lapointe: These are all circumstances which have not yet been explained. Even the reasoning of my right hon. friend the leader of the Government has not cleared away any of what he himself has called the mystery. Now, Sir, by-elections, apart from giving representation to the people of this country, as is their constitutional right, have this other advantage, that they demonstrate whether the Government of the day still possess the confidence of the people of the country. They are very important in that respect, and as I showed the other day, governments in other countries have resigned because of the trend of public opinion against them as demonstrated in by-elections. Perhaps I should not use that argument here, because it is the very reason why my hon. friends opposite do not want to hold any by-elections. At the present time there are vacancies in various parts of Canada. There is a vacancy in the West of Medicine Hat, there is one in York, Ontario, there are two in the province of Quebec, and there is one in the Maritime Provinces, not to speak of the vacancy in Leeds. In most of these constituencies, the Government, and even the Conservative party, have always won by big majorities; they are considered
safe Tory constituencies. Why should the Government be afraid to take the plunge and give the electors of these ridings the chance to be represented in this Parliament? They have the right to be represented here. In the Speech from the Throne itself we are told that matters of supreme importance to the people of this country will be brought down to the House this session. It is announced that there will be a revision of the tariff. We are confronted with a railway situation which is most serious. Surely the people of Canada have the right to be heard in the solution of these problems. Take the case of the St. Antoine division in Montreal. Nobody will say that it is a Liberal constituency. I do not think it ever was represented by a Liberal member in this House. Now the electors of St. Antoine have strong views on certain questions which are now before the country. You may read letters in the Montreal Gazette every day discussing the railway situation in Canada at the present time, written by supporters of this Governemnt, electors of St. Antoine. When this matter is discussed in the House these electors of St. Antoine have the right to have their views expressed on the floor of this House. They have the right to demand that they should be represented when those questions are discussed. They have the right to demand representation when the tariff policy of this country is settled by this Parliament. The electors of these five or six constituencies that are not represented here to-day have the right to be heard on the Imperial problems which are going to be discussed at the Conference to which my right hon. friend desires to proceed in the month of June. All these questions will be discussed during the present session, and the electors of St. Antoine, West York, York-Sunbury, Yamaska and Medicine Hat have the right to have their representative in this House to speak for them when these matters come up.
There is the subject that was introduced this afternoon when the Minister of Marine (Mr. Ballantyne), made his statement to the House. That is another big question. It is a most important question, and the electors of St. Antoine have pronounced views on the policy of the Government in regard thereto. They have the right to have those views expressed on the floor of the House, and what reason in the world can there be to prevent the Government from holding the by-elections in these various ridings? Why can they not trust the people? An evasion of that responsibility

implies that the Government do not trust the people of this country, and do not trust themselves. They are afraid that they have not the confidence of the people and consequently do not want an expression of this distrust at the polls. Let me say in conclusion that the more delay there is in this matter the worse will be the fate of the men who are responsible for that delay. The day will come when the people shall have the right and the opportunity to express their views and give their vote, and when that day comes we shall hear a different story from that told to-night.


Michael Clark: I wish in a very few words to tell the House how I am going to vote, and why, on this question. My first reason for voting as I shall vote is in a measure explained when I express the hope that whenever it is desired to impugn the policy of the Government, or to carry a vote of censure upon them, we shall not have too large a rehash of the very prolific amount of campaign oratory which we had last fall. There is one thing which I think my hon. friend, the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King), has by this time got thoroughly into the minds of the people of this country, and that is that he wants to have an election. There cannot be any doubt about that if one is to do what I do most fully and freely, that is, to give the utmost credit to him for sincerity in the various speeches which he has made upon that question. We had a resolution which was a vote of confidence or no confidence, and which I think the country looked for in connection with the speech from the ' Throne. It was proper that at the beginning of the session there should be a show-down in the circumstances which the country found itself in. In that resolution, to all intents and purposes, my hon. friend demanded an election. Well, the sense of Parliament was against his views at that time; and now he in effect says that if we cannot have a big election we will have several small ones. He is in favour of elections.	-
May I say to my hon. friend, in all sincerity, that an election is not a policy. It has no bearing one way or the other upon what my hon. friend and his supporters would do in regard to any one of the great problems before Canada if he came into power. It is the means of putting a policy into operation, if indeed a policy be the possession of those who might be put into power. Something has been said about evasion and I think my hon. friend himself used the word in another
connection. But this reiterated demand for an election, to my mind, almost amounts to an evasion on his part of his undoubted duty to tell the country what he is going to do if he becomes Prime Minister. In the debate on the Address my right hon. friend the Prime Minister (Hon. Mr. Meighen), and his Government put the policy of protection right in the centre of the stage. He did that following a pointed question which he had put to my hon. friend all over the country: What is the position of the leader of the Opposition on the principle of protection? Did my hon. friend answer that question?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, no.


Michael Clark: He has never answered it, and I want to express the opinion-I do so in all humility, but it is my opinion, and so long as I am here I have the right to express my views-that at this moment from east to west the people of Canada are far more concerned to know what is the hon. gentleman's exact position in regard to that principle of protection than they are concerned about any resolution such as he has brought before the House. That is my honest opinion, and I should like him to see if there be anything in it, and clear it up, because otherwise he will inevitably come under the suspicion of a desire to get a blank cheque from the electorate without having avowed any policy upon this matter of protection. What the country would like is not an election cry raised again and again, but a policy that is to be carried out after an election. There is a long session in front of us, and I trust my hon. friend will lay to heart what I am saying in perfect good faith and friendliness.
That brings me to the second reason why I shall vote against the resolution of my hon. friend, the leader of the Opposition. This very day an excellent opportunity was offered my hon. friend and his supporters to bring in a resolution which would have been a vote of censure, and could not have been mistaken for anything else, upon a question on which the whole debate rests. What happened in the House this afternoon? Two of the leading supporters of my hon. friend, in effect, charged that the very Estimates that are before the House, of the Minister of Marine, had been inflated to the tune of millions upon millions of dollars of the people's money since the armistice, in a way which was contrary to the public good, contrary to public policy, contrary to the best interests of the country. Now, I want to ask the members of

this House and the people of this country ; could there have been a straighter chance of taking a vote of the House upon a great principle of policy? My hon. friend talks of great problems. Is not that a problem? On the showing of my hon. friends from Maissoneuve (Mr. Lemieux) and Cape Breton North and Victoria (Mr. McKenzie), is not that a problem of enormous size, bigger than the question of six vacant seats? But again, I say that my hon. friend runs away from that problem and brings in a resolution which, after all, has no earthly connection in logic with the Estimates of the Marine Department, and certainly has no earthly connection with the waste of millions of the people's money upon the building of ships which are worse than useless, according to the showing of the hon. gentleman's own friends.
I quoted a figure myself this afternoon.
I am not going into the details of the shipping question as I should be out of order if I did. I merely quote the figure again to illustrate my point. I said it was freely stated in the newspapers of this country that up to the time of the armistice only sixteen and a half millions of dollars had been spent by the Government on a merchant marine. The figure now teaches to pretty nearly seventy millions. That is to say, according to the showing of my hon. friend's followers, fifty millions have gone wrong since the time that this policy should have been given up. Then why have we not a resolution of confidence or no confidence in the government on the very question which logically is before the House-that is the estimates of the Minister of Marine? These are two of the reasons why I shall vote against the amendement of my hon. friend. The third reason is this, that what my hon. friend has submitted, is in the first place, a proposal to reve.rse what has been the procedure of the Parliament of Canada from Confedration to this moment. What has been that procedure? The procedure has been that the laws of Canada,'made in the wisdom of our forefathers, have left the discretion as to the calling of an election in the hands of the government of the day. That is the principle and there is no getting away from it, that has been the principle of the procedure of the government of Canada until the Act of a couple of years ago. The proposal of my hon. friend is that we reverse that procedure which, I repeat, has substantially existed from Confederation to the present moment.
But what is the second element in the proposal? The second element in the proposal is that it asks us to reverse the law of the land by a resolution in Parliament on this particular question. My hon. friend from Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe) has said very truly that they have a definite law in Britain on this question of by-elections, and he has told the House what that law is. The law has entirely removed the discretion from the government of the day in Britain and put it in the hands of the Speaker. Every byelection there takes place automatically within a certain time, but we do not have an hon. gentleman-whether he be leader of the Opposition or whatever position he occupies in the British House-rising in his place, after an hour or an hour and a half's notice to other members of the House, and proposing that the law of Britain shall be overridden, the law which settles the method of calling by-elections. Well, I respectfully submit to my hon. friend from Quebec East and to my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition, that we have a law here and that as law-abiding subjects of the British Empire we are as much concerned in obedience to the law in Canada-whatever that law may be-as they are in Britain to the law over there; and my hon. friend's argument from the case of Britain, so far from helping him, is absolutely opposed to his point of view. Their law is different from ours- made by their Parliament, as our law was made by our Parliament. They carry out their byelections according to law. To be logical, -and not only to be logical but to be constitutional, and to show the proper regard which Parliament always should show for the laws of the land-we surely ought to live according to this law. And when was it carried? The law under which by-elections of the Canadian Parliament are now carried out was adopted two sessions ago by this very Parliament, con- -stituted of the very personnel that constitutes it now, and it was adopted on the initiative of an hon. gentleman who sits behind, and is a supporter of my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition.


John Wesley Edwards: And carried unanimously.


Michael Clark: Yes, carried unanimously; both sides agreed to it. But the strong point is that it was carried on the initiative of an hon. member for one of the divisions of Montreal who, I think, has

earned the gratitude ef the whole country by trying, at any rate, to limit the time during which the discretion of a government shall be allowed to operate in this particular direction. Now, Mr. Speaker, constituted as I am-with the desire to be logical, and with the desire to obey the dictates of the constitution and the law of the land-for the life of me I cannot understand how hon. gentlemen get over the argument that I have just presented to them. If the law is wrong-and that would be a frightful admission for my hon. friend from Montreal because he applied his acute legal brain to the drawing of it-if he says that he made a mistake in drawing that Act and the whole Parliament of Canada made a mistake in passing it-what is .our logical duty ? What is the logical duty of any Parliament to-day with a bad law? It is not to bring in a resolution to override that law; it is to alter it. That is the manifest duty of the citizens and legislators of Canada. It is true if the law happens to be a tariff one it is bad; it is true that it is our duty to express our opinions upon tariff laws and every other law here; but for the purposes of an Act like this surely our manifest duty, if the law is wrong, is to alter it. For my part I will simply close by saying that I cannot conceive of any greater indignity being placed on this Parliament-and I use the words with deliberation and forethought-I cannot conceive of any greater indignity being placed on this Parliament than to ask it-by means of a resolution dictated largely, I fear, by sheer party expediency-to override by its own act a solemn law which it placed on the statute book only two years ago.


John Wesley Edwards: I would like to make one or two
observations in regard to this matter, and I do not think it will be necessary in noting the salient points to occupy as much time as did the hon. member for Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe) in his ponderous effort of a short time ago. The hon. member waxed very indignant over the fact that there were certain constituencies in Canada which are not at present represented in this House. He declared, as every person will admit, that it is the right of every constituency in Canada to be represented in Parliament; and he went on to talk about the people who had fought and the blood that had been shed, to gain the people the great boon of being represented in Parliament. The hon. gentleman, however, conveniently passed over a situation which exists in regard to a

certain constituency in Canada which it seems to me should have occurred to him, to say nothing of his associates. I agree with the hon. gentleman that it is the right of every Canadian constituency to be represented in this Parliament, but let me ask this question:	what about
the two constituencies represented at the present time by the hon. member who sits immediately to the right of the official leader of the Opposition? Why is it that that hon. gentleman has not resigned one of those seats and given its constituents an opportunity to elect a representative to this House? The hon. member for Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe) complains that certain constituencies have been deprived of representation for a period of two or three months, but it does not seem to affect him in the slightest degree that one ' at least of the two constituencies I have referred to has been deprived of direct representation for a period of four years. Why does not the leader of the Opposition prevail upon the hon. gentleman who sits to his right to vacate one of those seats and give opportunity for an election either in the constituency of Gaspe or in the constituency of Maisonneuve? I think the reason was suggested by the hon. member for Red Deer. The hon. leader of the official Opposition has taken part in certain byelections, it is true, and he has figured in one part of the country in one way and in another part of the country in another way. I believe if the truth were known and we got at his real reasons for not bringing on an election in either of those constituencies it would be that he is afraid to test the opinion of ihe electorate there.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, Oh.


Mr. ARCHAMBAULT:: Let us have a
good laugh.


John Wesley Edwards: It is the privilege of hon. gentlemen opposite, Mr. Speaker, and especially of my hon. friend from Chambly and Vercheres, to laugh. He is so beautiful at all times that he cannot add to his beauty even when he cracks his face in a laugh. But when the hon. leader of the Opposition taunts the Government with being afraid to bring on elections in certain constituencies, it is obvious that if he has a right to draw that conclusion, I certainly have a corresponding right to draw my conclusion as to why de does not prevail upon the hon. gentleman who sits to his right to vacate one of his two seats and test the opinion of its constituents. I have stated my opinion that he is afraid to test the feeling in one of those

constituencies which is largely interested in manufacturing; and in the other, which, I believe, is largely rural, he is also afraid to test its opinion, just as he has shown himself afraid to test the opinion of his follow-[DOT] ers in this House by a straight tariff resolution, as evidenced by his naked amendment on the Address.
But, Mr. Speaker, let us consider for a moment as to why it would be unreasonable to expect any person in this chamber, excepting the hon. leader of the official Opposition himself, to vote for the resolution which he has moved. I think I am right in saying that he was not a member of the House in the session of 1919 when the Bill was passed fixing the time when elections must be held at six months. If he was not then present, we cannot hold him responsible for that piece of legislation. But the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's was a member at that time, and in seconding this resolution he is casting a reflection upon the wisdom of the vote which he gave when that Act was passed. Is it reasonable to ask me or any other member to vote for a resolution worded as this resolution is when two sessions ago a law was unanimously enacted placing the discretionary power in the hands of the Government at six months in regard to the holding of by-elections. If that law is wrong, and six months is too long a time to allow, the law should be amended; but so long as that statute remains in force, then the discretion of the Government is within that six months, just as its discretion was unlimited before that legislation was passed.
I contend that no hon. member who voted for that law two sessions ago can logically or reasonably vote for the amendment which has been moved by the hon. the leader of the Opposition this afternoon.


Mr. LEVI THOMSON (Qu'Appelle):: Mr. Speaker, this resolution states that the House is of opinion that representation in Parliament being a fundamental right of the people, writs should be issued, and so on. There can be no doubt whatever that that fundamental right Should be given to the people as far as it is reasonably possible, and if we are to look upon this resolution as merely a pious declaration of opinion, there can be no question of what we ought to do in regard to the first part of it. But the question may arise as to what we should do in view of the fact that we believe that all persons should be represented in this House, and that some are
not so represented. As has been pointed out by the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark), we passed a law a short time ago providing for cases of this kind, and I think it was well that we did so. There may be some ground of complaint as to that legislation, and if it were proposed to amend it by limiting still further the power of the Government in regard to the time within which to hold by-elections, I think it would be disposed, as I feel at present, to support a motion of that kind. That, however, is not what we are asked to do here. As has been stated by the last two speakers, we are asked practically to ignore that law, and to act now in a way different from what we decided should be done when we passed that legislation. I do not think that is the proper way to go about it. In doing the right thing we should do it in the right way.
Something has been said about the resignation of a former member of this House, Sir Herbert Ames, and although I was not present during all the discussion, it seems to me, in the absence of some better explanations that I have heard, that there is an element of suspicion about that matter, and it should be cleared up.
Our law provides that a writ must be issued for a by-election within six months of the issuing of your warrant, Mr. Speaker. But so far as I can read the Election Act, there is no time fixed within which the polling must take place, and it seems to me that perhaps the law is rather weak in that particular. I think we depended on the government of the day to deal fairly in that respect. Whether this Government have dealt fairly or not in regard to it, I have been advised, whether rightly or wrongly, that the writ was issued for the East Elgin election some three months before the election was held. If the Government hold off by-elections through the power which they have of fixing the date on which the polling is to take place, then we might as well not have any date fixed for by-elections at all. I think we should deal with this weakness in our present legislation in the way I have suggested, that is, by amending that legislation rather than by bringing in resolutions to overcome the defect. From the reports I have received in regard to the East Elgin by-election, there appears to be an element of suspicion surrounding it, and I think we ought to have some explanation. But the

mere fact that there is some suspicion in connection with certain things the Government has done does not in my opinion, justify our passing a resolution by which, in effect, we are asked to ignore the law of the land and to condemn the Government for not doing things which the law of the land does not require them to do. For that reason I shall feel myself justified in voting against this resolution. Not only do I feel justified, but I feel it my duty to do so and I have made these remarks in order to explain my position.
I am fully in accord with the sentiment expressed in the beginning of the resolution, that every part of the country should be represented in this House, and if the law is such now that the Government can prevent any part of the country having proper representation we should amend the law accordingly. But I do not see how we would gain very much even if the resolution were accepted by the Government and they took the necessary steps to at once issue writs for elections to fill the existing vacancies, for I hope this session will not last so many months that we shall be kept here long enough for the successful candidates of those by-elections to take their seats. At any rate I do not think any good purpose is served by introducing new members during the last few days of the session when we are rushing business through and trying to get home. .


William Stevens Fielding: Mr Speaker, the question has
been so fully discussed that I can hardly hope to add anything material at this late stage; yet there are two or three thoughts to which I should like to be permitted briefly to call attention.
In the discussion that occurred a few days ago I ventured, presuming, perhaps upon my long experience in this House, to say to my right hon. friend the leader of the Government (Mr. Meighen), that I thought he would have been wise if instead of cracking the party whip and treating the amendment then offered as a non-confidence motion he had accepted it, because it simply asserted one of the vital principles of parliamentary government. From what has occurred since, from the discussion in ' the press and from reports that have reached me as to the views of hon. gentlemen in this House, privately expressed in general conversation, I am going to hazard the opinion that my right hon. friend rather regrets to-day that he did not

adopt that view. I may be mistaken, but he probably thinks it would have been wiser had he accepted the motion. Well, at the risk of repeating myself I am going to express regret again that my right hon. friend does not see the wisdom of accepting the motion that is now before the House, because it is simply the assertion of one of the very first principles of our parliamentary government. When my right hon. friend says that this amendment also must be treated as a non-confidence motion, I again protest that he is not representing the matter fairly. I am speaking from memory, but I am quite sure I am safe in saying that there are precedents and good precedents under all governments in Canada for the acceptance by the Government of an amendment to supply when it contains within itself nothing obnoxious when it asserts something that is admittedly sound and right, which ought not to be voted down simply because it is an amendment to supply. I have not looked at authorities, but my recollection will, I think, justify my saying that. If it should turn out upon later inquiry that I am mistaken, I shall be the first to make correction, but I am pretty certain that I am right. It is not a conclusive argument, therefore, to say that this motion must be voted down because it is an amendment to suply; if it asserts something which is true and right and reasonable, then the House should accept it. I am afraid my right hon. friend is putting a strain upon the loyalty of his friends when he asks them to vote down propositions so simple, so vital to the administration of public affairs in accordance with the institutions of British parliamentary government.
Now, a word or two with regard to the question of notice. I would like to remind the House that under the rules of comparatively recent years, under a rule which, if it be not offensive, I might call a parliamentary strangulation, and for which my right hon. friend the Prime Minister is probably more responsible than anybody else, under the restrictions that are now placed upon discussion in this House, this is the only day in this week when we can challenge the action of the Government by a motion of this kind. There are three days for Government business this week, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. On Thursday and Friday the Speaker leaves the Chair without any disucssion and we would have no opportunity on those days to submit such a motion. Therefore, unless we brought forward our motion this day, Tuesday, -we could not bring it forward for another week,

and that, I think, is sufficient reason. But let me say to my right hon. friend that beyond that there is a reason. We have been having a few holidays; members are scattered throughout the different provinces ; many of them have not yet returned. If we were to avail ourselves of this opportunity of bringing the motion before the House, then we had to have a hurried consultation this day after some of the members had returned. In these circumstances-circumstances	from which
my right hon. friend cannot entirely absolve himself, because he had a large part in making the rules-we were precluded from dealing with the matter unless we brought it forward as we did to-day on the motion to go into supply. My right hon. friend will see, therefore, that we were justified in proceeding as we did. I know that the intention of the leader of the Opposition was to give my right hon. friend all the notice that was possible. I quite agree that it is desirable that in these matters reasonable notice should be given. I would like to feel that he has all reasonable opportunity of meeting anything that we bring forward.
The right hon. gentleman had much to say about the practice of old times. If my hon. friend made a study of Hansard for the purpose of these references I am sure he must have found quite a number of occasions upon which he and his friends took a view very different from that which they take to-day. I have no doubt he will find on examining the old records that on many an occasion he and the former leader of the Government, the member for King's, N.S. (Sir Robert Borden) and others when they were in opposition were very vehement in demanding that there should be no delay in the issuance of the writs. However, I do not attach much importance to that. If the cases stated by my right hon. friend were as strong as he presents them-and I assume for the moment that he has presented them truthfully-if there was such delay in the holding of the by-elections as he describes, then I say I do not care under what government it was done, it was wrong and it is time we corrected it. But suppose I admit for the sake of argument that the hon. gentleman's contention is correct. Suppose he makes a point against my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition; suppose he makes a point against me as a member of the ministry of former years, what answer is that to the people of Canada? Is it any answer to them to say
that I did wrong many years ago, if wrong it was? Surely two wrongs, as the old adage goes, do not make a right, and instead of going back to what hon. gentlemen claim to be the errors of former days it would be far better for them to stand behind their own record of these days and demand that these faults, if they were faults, should no longer continue. What answer is it to the elector down in St. Antoine to be told: Oh well, we had this up in the House some years ago; Mr. King and Mr. Fielding discussed it on that occasion, and their attitude then was inconsistent with the attitude they take now. But, says the elector in St. Antoine, what have I do with the leader of the Opposition and the member for Shelburne and Queen's? I have my rights as an elector of Canada; I have a right to be represented. What answer is it to the electors of Yamaska? What answer to the electors of York-Sunbury? What answer to the electors in any part of Canada? When these electors say: I have the right to be represented in Parliament, the right hon. gentleman replies: Some years ago Mr. Fielding and Mr. King had different views, and we are going to stand on that. It is a poor argument; the world is moving today.
New occasions teach new duties,
Time makes ancient good uncouth;
He must upward still and onward Who would keep ahreast with truth.
Instead of relying on the practice of the olden days, how much better it would be to move forward with the times and stand for the right of the people to be represented in Parliament. That is the rule that my right hon. friend should follow; that is the procedure he should adopt, rather than talk of what we did many years ago. It is a fact that hundreds and thousands of the young men of this country who are prepared, whenever they have an opportunity, to vote, had no opportunity of so voting when these things occurred. I am not indifferent to the records of the past; we may learn much from them; but the world is moving, and if the principles set forth in this amendment are sound and reasonable, we should be prepared to accept them. They are sound and reasonable. What reasons can be given for not accepting them? None has been given today.
Yes, my right hon. friend (Mr. Meighen) said: We have the six months' rule. The nature of that rule has not been fairly stated; it has been quoted here in a manner

which would imply that the intention was that an election need not be held for six months. It is preposterous to say that that was the intention of the Act. It was not the intention of the Act. When you give the Government power to issue a writ within six months, it is absurd to say that they are entitled to take the full benefit of that law, because that would shut out a number of constituencies from representation for a whole session of Parliament. Put aside the question A, B and C; put aside the question of consistency or inconsistency; put it as a simple question of representation. What right have the people of Shelburne and Queen's to representation and the people of St. Antoine to be denied representation? What right have any of the members of this House to represent their constituencies here and at the same time to tell the people of Ya-maska and York-Sunbury that they have not a right to be represented? The point is that we ought to be ready to give these people early and prompt elections. I cannot see that my hon. friends opposite have given us a single argument other than the old story of what we did many years ago. I have not investigated that, but I have no doubt that in many of those cases, perhaps in all of them, good reasons could be shown. I am, however, going to assume, for the sake of argument, that we were wrong, and I say, unhesitatingly, that if the cases were as described by my right hon. friend, if we deprived any constituency of an election for years-I do not know who did so-that was wrong, and instead of defending the wrong, it is high time we came to a better understanding in regard to the situation. That is the whole question.
No reason in law or argument can be advanced against the motion of my hon. friend, and it ought not to be treated as a vote of want of confidence. Hon. members of this House who read that motion calmly, when they leave this House to-night and go home and have their constituents read it, will see that no good reasons have been given why the motion should not prevail. It is in the interest of prompt elections; it is in the interest of every section which has the right of parliamentary representation. There is no reason for this hocus-pocus on the part of the Government. Why should there be this monkey business over the resignation of the hon. member for St. Antoine? Why should the hon. member for North Grey (Mr. Middle-bro), for whom I have the highest esteem, be led astray by this hocus-pocus business

and get into trouble by being induced to sign documents which, on their face, as an hon. gentleman said, are somewhat suspicious? As regards my much respected friend, the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Whid-den), I have more than a kindly interest in his welfare; he is a son of an old political opponent, but an old friend, with whom I crossed swords many a time years ago in the legislature of Nova Scotia. I am sorry to find that estimable gentleman has been dragged into this miserable business by which suspicion, which the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Thomson) has spoken about, surrounds that resignation. All that shows the simple reason for accepting the motion of my hon. friend. Why not give the people of these respective constituencies an opportunity to have an election?
I forgot one reason my right hon. friend advanced. He said: "If you did have these by-elections, what would happen? We would have to go off to the constituencies and defend our cause; those gentlemen would not go, they would not grant pairs, and therefore, we would be at a disadvantage." My right hon. friend has paid us the compliment that if there were by-elections, he and his friends would have to go and fight them, while we could stay at home and win.


Arthur Meighen: I do not think it is quite as bad as that. I did not say that at all. I did not say that hon. gentlemen opposite would not go; much less did I suggest that they could win, because they have won scarcely anything that I remember. I said that they could go; but that as the rules put it in their power to challenge the Government by a motion that was not debatable, they could bring on a motion at a time that suited them, but we could not do the same thing. I pointed out their advantage under the rules.


William Stevens Fielding: The right hon gentleman's comment was in regard to pairs. He said that we would not grant pairs.


Arthur Meighen: Certainly.


William Stevens Fielding: If we did not pair, we would be in Parliament.


Arthur Meighen: Yes.


William Stevens Fielding: Therefore, my right
hon. friend clearly implied that if there were by-elections, he and his friends would be obliged to go away and fight them; that we would not do so. We would have an advantage. I am.going to make a suggestion to my right hon. friend, if that was

a material point in his argument, and it was about as strong as any argument he used. If he is afraid of that, let him bring on the by-elections, and we will give him all the pairs he wants. I think the facts and the principles involved are so plain to every thinking man that I am amazed that any extensive argument should be deemed necessary. The whole question is this: Have the people of every part of Canada a right to be represented in Parliament? If they have, why not give it to them? No shadow of reason has been advanced why the constituencies of St. Antoine and Yamaska should not be given the privilege of representation at the earliest possible moment.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Mr. Speaker, I am not quite sure whether there is adequate reason for me to intervene in this debate; but we have sat so long listening to arguments in support of a motion for which there was manifestly no adequate reason, that I am overcome by the evil example and led to add reasons where reasons are not required. We have been accustomed in this House to the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) making "much ado about nothing;" we have not as yet become accustomed to that line of action on the part of the hon. member for Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe), nor, may I add, on the part of the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding); but this evening they seem to have been overcome with the conviction that their leader had not had his usual success in making "much ado about nothing," or at all events, that he had not made as "much ado about nothing" as this particular "nothing" in their eyes required, and, therefore, they felt obliged to come to the rescue. The hon. gentleman who spoke last, (Mr. Fielding), to take him first in order, felt impelled to support this motion by representing it to be absolutely the most harmless thing in the world. Why, it did not mean anything at all; it was just the affirmation of a principle which nobody doubted and nobody disputed, and why on earth should we not affirm it? Why should it be suggested that this motion was a motion of want of confidence? The hon. gentleman's proposition amounts to this, that every time the Government comes to this House asking for Supply, this House may properly be stopped in order that we may affirm, for instance, that the sun stands 84
in the firmament, and we must not go into Supply; we must strike out all the words after "that," and substitute the indisputable declaration that the sun is in the firmament, and then hon. gentlemen will rise in indignation and will say: Why do you call this a vote of want of confidence? Why do you ask this House to refuse to affirm what is self-evident to all the world, namely, that the sun is in the firmament? Oh, ye unreasonable men!
Does the hon. gentleman ignore the fact that there are two portions to the motion? Before you come to affirm these perfectly innocent, harmless propositions, you ask this House to say to the Government's motion to go into Supply: No, you won't get your Supply. Why? Because it is essential that we should affirm so and so. Can there be any suggestion of utility in a performance of that kind if it is not implied that the conduct of the Government is in some way violating this principle which the House is called upon to affirm? And yet hon. gentlemen are amazed because we treat this as a want of confidence motion. I have no doubt of the sincerity of the last gentleman who spoke (Mr. Fielding), but I am puzzled to see how, in view of his sincerity, he conciliates his affirmation, on the one hand, that this motion is no motion of want of confidence, with the declaration in his next breath that if they had not made this motion to-day they would have had no opportunity this week to affirm this principle. Why, Mr. Speaker, if they wanted merely to affirm a principle, the Order Paper is open to them as it is to every hon. member of this House. They might have put this resolution on the Order Paper for tomorrow or the next day, and might have debated it to their hearts' content, but that would not have served their purpose; that would not have served the purpose of the people who are amazed that we think this is a motion of want of confidence. Why would it not have served their purpose? Because it would not have carried with it the censure that the refusal of this House on the Government's motion to go into Supply implies and carries with it, and because it would not have had in it the sting that if it were carried tonight they would point out tomorrow to be in it' -the sting of the imputation that this Government has not lived up, in the letter and in the spirit, to what is the real principle with regard to representation in this House. So much for the pretension of the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's



that we are not face to face with a vote of want of confidence. So much for the pretension that all that is wanted is a declaration of this abstract principle of the right of everybody to representation. Now let us see the other nothings about which we have had so much ado to-day.


Jacques Bureau: You are getting quite
Shakespearian.


Charles Joseph Doherty: A little Shakespeare
might not do hon. gentleman on the other side any harm at all.


Jacques Bureau: A little Moliere and
Corneille would do a lot of good to the Government side.


Charles Joseph Doherty: It might, and therefore we have recourse to them. I steer clear of the Scriptures, however, since my experience the other day. I would not. for all the world resurrect once more the two scriptural familiars of my hon. friend from Cape Breton North and Victoria (Mr. McKenzie),-his friends Pontius Pilate and Judas Iscariot. My hon. friend from Three Rivers (Mr. Bureau) will have to pardon me if I should bring back to his memory by the allusion I have made to the title of a play, the memory of Shakespeare, which I hope he keeps alive in his heart, and by whose teaching I hope he will endeavour to profit.
To pass to some of the other nothings with regard to which we have had much ado, in the first place we have had a fierce denunciation of the tu quoque argument, and hon. gentlemen have seemed to take it that because the right hon. leader of this House ventured to refer to some past actions of their own he had no argument to make except that "we are bad, and you are worse." Now there is a purpose for which it is sometimes salutary to look back into the history of the past, even though it may not afford an argument to justify or condemn the particular action of to-day. If it were not for my dread of getting on scriptural ground and my respect for the preserves of the hon. member for Cape Breton'North and Victoria, I might remind hon. gentlemen opposite that it is written in a certain book that it is well for those who live in glass houses not to cast stones.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: That is not in the
Bible.


Charles Joseph Doherty: The hon. gentleman
says it is not in the Bible. We will not insist on its particular biblical situation, although I think I could satisfy my hon. friend on that point. However that may

be, perhaps it does not do hon. gentlemen any harm, when they wax warm in the heat of their indignation, to recall to them that perhaps a little of their heat is due to the fact that people living in glass houses are apt to find themselves in hothouses, and are therefore apt to get a little overheated about the shortcomings of other people; and perhaps a little dose of past history may do no harm in the way of calming them, even if their glass construction should escape destruction.
Of course, we all admit that two wrongs do not make a right. Of course they do not, but where is the wrong that has yet been established? Where is the wrong of to-day? Why, in most of these cases, it is a matter of a few weeks. Hon. gentlemen may say what they like but, as one of them did say, the legislation of 1919 fixed a reasonable delay. Parliament sat here and considered what was a reasonable delay, and Parliament fixed that reasonable delay at six months. Now I do not suggest that that means the Government must not hold an election until the end of six months; but it is the solemn judgment of Parliament that within a period of six months it is proper that the Government of the day should exercise its discretion as to when an election ought to be held. And what are we here asked to vote?-to pass an order by this House to issue the writ in all these cases tomorrow. Well, now, Mr. Speaker, the representation of the people of the country in this House is important, and the choice of their representative is important, and because those two things are important, it is important that elections should be conducted in such a manner as to give every opportunity to the electorate to exercise calmly their' judgment and pronounce, after fair discussion and calm consideration, upon the issues that are submitted to them. -That takes time, and it depends largely upon local conditions as to whether one particular moment or another is the time when you may get the proper judgment of the rural people- Take this very proposal that is urged upon us to-night. If we issued these writs to-morrow we should be holding elections in certain rural constituencies-in Medicine Hat and Yamaska-in view of the delays that must necessarily intervene, just at the time when these rural populations will be actually taking up the important work of their seeding and when they will be very loath and averse to being called away from it to engage in the determination of important political questions that are to be dealt with and to follow up

that by an election. I just point that out to show the wisdom of Parliament when it confided to the government of the country a reasonable period of time within which to select the proper moment when the people will have the best opportunity of providing themselves with the representation to which they are entitled. If the importance of that is realized, I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the common sense of the House, that a month more or less in the time that elapses, within the six months to which we are limited, is a matter of very little consequence indeed, and I am quite justified in describing all this fuss as "much ado about nothing."
As to the motives imputed to the Government in this connection, it is hardly necessary, I think, that I should point out that this is the first government in the Dominion of Canada that has submitted itself to a Parliamentary rule restricting the time to which it might suspend elections; and to impute gratuitously to a government whose action made that rule possible, any desire to abuse the discretion, so limited at its own instance, in order to defeat the rights of the electors, is a proposition which, I must say, with all respect to the hon. gentleman who moved this resolution, and the hon. gentleman who seconded it, they will, on reflection, realize was more than ungenerous-was absolutely unfair.
Now, I do not want to take up time with the smallest of the nothings about which there has been so much ado. But there is the matter of the resignation of my very good friend Sir Herbert Ames. I am sure Sir Herbert will be cut to the quick when he reads the report of the address of the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding), and finds that he has been charged with being a party to a hocus-pocus in regard to his resignation.


William Stevens Fielding: Oh, no; I did not make any charge against him.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Oh! Then the hon.
gentleman made no charge against the only person in the world who had control of that resignation! Who was it that approached the hon. member for North Grey (Mr. Mid-dleboro), and the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Whidden), and asked them to sign this document? Sir Herbert Ames, the gentleman who, my hon. friend would not for one moment suggest, would have anything to do with hocus-pocus. But what was the hocus-pocus that took place? It
844	[DOT]
was the witnessing of the signature of Sir Herbert Ames, at the instance of Sir Herbert himself, by the hon. member for North Grey and the hon. member for Brandon; and my hon. friend almost weeps over the unfortunate condition in which those two gentlemen find themselves in having been mixed up in this disgraceful proceeding. But Sir Herbert Ames, at whose instance they signed the document as witnesses, stands immaculate, unconnected with the hocus-pocus. For him the hon. gentleman has no word of condemnation; and in that let me say that I join most heartily with him; I have no word of condemnation for Sir Herbert. But I cannot follow the hon. member in his commiseration, if not condemnation, of the two other gentlemen who did what Sir Herbert asked them to do. I cannot agree with my hon. friend in his views in regard to this awful offence, and the falsehood imputed to those who signed the document as witnesses because the date was not on it; nor can I admire the learning and the legal lore to which we have been treated this evening upon this question of the necessity of witnesses certifying to the dates of documents. Hon. genltemen are positive about it. Why, it is so clear to them that there are not in the English language words lucid enough to do justice to its clarity. For common mortals who read the statute, however, I submit that what they find there is that there must be but the signing and sealing before a witness. There is not a word in the statute to require the date in the document, and hon. gentlemen read into a prescription that does not require such a provision at all, a witnessing to the date of a document. I will not undertake to speak for other provinces, but some of the lawyers who spoke are distinguished members of the legal profession in my own province, and I think that they would be satisfied with the sufficiency of a witness to a signature who does not witness to the date at all, if they turned up the civil code of the province of Quebec, wherein they would find, in regard to probably the most solemn document to which only two witnesses are required-that is, one of the forms of will in that province derived from the laws of England-that it is in so many words declared to be sufficient that the individual should exhibit his signature,-not write it in anyone's presence but exhibit a signature written previously, possibly on some date the witnesses knew nothing of-and then they sign to attest the signature. What is important about this document is the signature of Sir Herbert

Ames, and that is what the witnesses attested.
Now, we have all this talk and this reading of the speech in the Empire Parliamentary Association's Report, in which it is stated that Sir Herbert said that his resignation was in the hands of the Speaker; and hon. gentlemen are exercised as to whether people do or do not believe that statement, while all the time they run away from the perfectly manifest fact that, unless the veracity of the speaker he put in question, the very most that can he said is that Sir Herbert made a mistake in speaking. Now, I do not know in whose hands he left the resignation. I do not know what reason he had at that time for being under the impression that it had already reached the hands of the Speaker. I do not know whether he did or did not change his mind, or whether he had been under the impression that he had taken steps to send it to the Speaker or not. I simply do not know anything of this; I have no explanation to offer, and I have no responsibility so far as all this is concerned; nor has the Government any responsibility or obligation, or explanation, for it. Sir Herbert is an honourable gentleman; hon. members profess their confidence in him. He has the key to all this, and if they are curious about the relations between Sir Herbert and his trusted friends, I can only suggest that they apply to him, in whose honour I have the same confidence as they have, and I have no doubt they will get ample satisfaction for their curiosity. But, after all, what is it but empty curiosity? If they will read their statute they will find that a resignation is an effective document only from the moment it reaches the Speaker's hands. Just as a promissory note, so long as the maker keeps it in his own hands or in the hands of his own agent, binds him to nobody and to nothing, so that resignation has no binding legal effect until it has passed into the hands of the Speaker. And if whoever was the custodian of it, had chosen to tear the document to pieces before it reached there, he would have been responsible to Sir Herbert Ames and to Sir Herbert Ames alone. Until that document reached the Speaker, Sir Herbert Ames was as fully a member of this House as any of us who sit here to-night.
I am not going, except for the purpose of correcting one or two statements, to refer to the past. I deem it to be only proper, however, that the hon. member for Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe) should be corrected in his statement that never up to the time referred to had there been

a period when the session went by without a constituency being represented in Parliament. Let me just mention one case that my eye falls on, and it is a startling one-the case of West Durham where, in the general elections of 1900, by reason of some irregularity, no return was made of the election that took place in that year, and no by-election to fill the vacancy occurred until January 15,	1902 -[DOT]
that is to say from November, 1900, till January, 1902-and most assuredly it will not be suggested that there was not a session during that period.


Jacques Bureau: Was there a proceeding before the courts in reference to that election in the meanwhile?


Charles Joseph Doherty: There had been no election; the returning officer did not return any candidate as elected. There was nothing before the courts because no return had been made.


Jacques Bureau: Then there was no proceeding of any kind before the courts?


Charles Joseph Doherty: I cannot see on what such a proceeding could have been based.


William Stevens Fielding: What was the evidence of a vacancy?


Charles Joseph Doherty: The best evidence of a vacancy was that in the general election- a writ was issued for an election in West Durham as well as everywhere else, but the return day went by and no return came.


William Stevens Fielding: That might not' be technical evidence of a vacancy; there might be reasons for that.


Charles Joseph Doherty: There was no evidence of any body being the member. The vacancy occurred when a general election was called, and the vacancy continued to exist until somebody was returned to represent that constituency. Ordinarily somebody does get returned for a constituency and the vacancy in that riding results from his disappearance. Here the vacancy was not the result of the non-appearance of anybody; the vacancy had existed since the House had been dissolved and continued to exist. There is also the case to which my hon. friend from Frontenac referred. We have had, sitting in this House ever since the general elections of 1917, an hon. gentleman who occupies two seats and thereby excludes one of these ridings from representation.


William Stevens Fielding: They both have representatives; they both have the man of their choice. .


Charles Joseph Doherty: I would say that one has a representative or else neither has. My hon. friend from Maisonneuve and likewise from Gaspe-the gentleman who comes from opposite directions at the same time-is a man of fairly goodly proportions, but I fancy that if you divided him between the two counties neither of them would have a complete member.


Samuel William Jacobs: He would be dismembered.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Yes, as the hon. gentleman suggests, in the operation the member becomes dismembered, and the constituency is deprived of a member.


Samuel William Jacobs: Is the right hon. gentleman aware that one of these seats has been contested and that it is impossible for the hon. member in question to resign while the case is before the courts?


Charles Joseph Doherty: I have heard it so
stated. I am not of an overwhelmingly suspicious turn of mind, but when I am told that an hon. member has been for a period of four years the object of a fierce onslaught on the part of a determined opponent insisting on driving him from his seat and leaving him with a broken heart because that inconsiderate action deprives him of resigning one seat .or the other, may I confess that notwithstanding the high respect I entertain for my hon. friend the dual member for Gaspe and Maisonneuve I cannot keep out of my mind a certain suspicion-I wonder what the hon. member for George Etienne Cartier (Mr. Jacobs) thinks about it-a certain suspicion that if the contestation was not more likely to keep the hon. gentleman in two seats than to drive him from one, it might probably disappear. While we are on the question may I say that the thought has very frequently occurred to me-how did that contestation come about? There was a great reproach made to the legislation with respect to elections which preceded the last general election, the reproach being that as the law operates the thirty or forty days within which it was essential to file a petition in contestation of an election, actually expired before we got the return. Consequently it was said- and apparently was recognized in every constituency in Canada except the one of the two in which the petition now referred
to was filed-that there was no opportunity to file a petition.


Charles Gavan Power: May I suggest to the
right hon. gentleman that if there is any abuse in the administration of justice in the province of Quebec, or elsewhere, it is the duty of the Minister of Justice to see that it is corrected.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I have not suggested that there is any abuse.


Charles Gavan Power: Or suspicion of any?


Charles Joseph Doherty: May I gently intimate to the hon. member for Quebec South that if the Minister of Justice should take upon himself to attempt to direct or control the administration of justice in the province of Quebec he would be very promptly and very politely asked by the Attorney General of that province to mind his own business. The hon. gentleman shares a misapprehension that is very common in this country, a misapprehension that the Minister of Justice has some control or direction of the administration of justice, a matter which our constitution confides, and confides exclusively, to the provinces. That being the case, I can only recommend the hon. gentleman to carry his suggestion to his very good friend the Attorney General for the province of Quebec, who, no doubt, will give it every attention.


Charles Gavan Power: And then have it referred back to the Minister of Justice in order that he should amend the law about which he complains.
i Mr. DOHERTY: But you have not complained about the law. I am sorry the hon. member for Maisonneuve and for Gasp6 (Mr. Lemieux) is not here this eveping. I would suggest to him in the most friendly way that it would be wise on his part to let
the world know who the petitioner is in that contestation, and in what court that petition is lodged, so that it may be open to inspection by the general public, who may be less confiding than I am, to satisfy themselves of its actual existence.


Samuel William Jacobs: Why not appoint a royal commission?


Charles Joseph Doherty: Hon. gentlemen who are so resourceful might perhaps themselves find out for the benefit of the general public. However, it cannot leave one unmoved to observe the absolutely unperturbed condition of the hon. leader of the Opposition and the hon. gentleman who seconds this motion in face of the depriva-

tion of the people of one or other of those constituencies of Gaspe and Maisonneuve of representation in this House; and the contrast is somewhat remarkable.
Now, Mr. Speaker, with apologies for having myself contributed anything to this "much ado about nothing," I think I may safely resume my seat, feeling that I have no anxiety that I have not said all that could be usefully said, my only regret being that I should have wasted so much time over matter calling after all for so very little serious consideration.


Mr. F. F. PARDEE (West Lambton) :: Mr. Speaker, the closing sentences of the hon. Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty) were, it seems to me, hardly consistent. He apologised to the House for taking up so much time on a matter that he thinks of so little importance; but if he thinks it of so little importance why did he waste the time of the House? It did appear to me in listening to his opening and closing remarks that the government benches having debated this matter in solemn form during the afternoon and the first part of the evening, apparently decided to put up a joker at the end in the hope of overwhelming the resolution with ridicule. That would appear to be the only conclusion to be drawn from the speech delivered by the Minister of Justice.
But, taking up the last part of his address first, he referred to the hon. member for Gaspe (Mr. Lemieux) and made some jocular remarks to the effect that if the hon. gentleman could be divided into two he might represent both Gaspe and Maisonneuve. Let me say to the minister in all seriousness that the fact remains that my hon. friend was elected by both of those constituencies. He stood for the verdict of the people, and that verdict said that he was their choice to represent them in this House. Now let the Government go and do the same thing in these constituencies which have been without representation for many months. That is what we are complaining about, and it is what the Government shrink from doing. The Minister of Justice says, to quote his own words, "It appears to me there is very much ado about nothing. Why should this House stop and debate the question, if it so seems fit to hon. members of the Opposition, whether or not the sun stands in the firmament? "Now, Sir, as to there being, much ado about nothing, let me bring this phase of the matter to the attention of the House. Does the Prime Minister or does the MinisfMr. Doherty.]
ter of Justice think that to complain, as we do, of the disenfranchisement of 200,000 people for several months is much ado about nothing? If there is one thing we ought to have in Canada it is responsibility of government, and responsibility of government rests with the people. If the government of the day has decided that the people shall not be trusted-and apparently they have so decided-well and good, let the Government say so. But why does a minister holding one of the most important positions in the Government stand up and say to the House and the country that this motion is only being brought forward at the whim of the leader of the Opposition? Let me say to him and to the other members of the Government and their supporters that if they will only put their ear to the ground for a few moments they will find that this motion is not brought forward to satisfy the whim of the leader of the Opposition, but rather to satisfy the whim of the people of this Dominion.
The right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Meighen) said this afternoon, if I understood him aright, that the question of the right of the hon. member for Leeds to hold a seat in this House he would have to refer to the Department of Justice. Has anybody the temerity, Mr. Speaker, to stand up in this House and say that when a man is being paid a fee of $100,000, as has been reported, for conducting the Government's case in an arbitration as appears to be the case from the Act passed for that purpose, and whicfh was cited by the hon. leader of the Opposition this afternoon, that he is not within the pay of the Government and does not infringe the provisions of the Independence of Parliament Act? Do you need any opinion of the Minister of Justice, Sir, on that point? You need the opinion of no one. The right hon. Prime Minister knows, every member on the Government side knows, and the people of this country know, that Sir Thomas White, the hon. member for Leeds to-day, has no more right to sit in this House than the man in the street.
How many people have been disfranchised for months? In the constituency of Leeds there are 36,753; in Medicine Hat, 24,481; in Yamaska, 20,387; in York, Sun-bury, 30,780-and in passing let me ask this question: Do I understand that your warrant, Sir, has been issued in the case of York-Sunbury? If it has' it is a most significant circumstance, and it has, I be-

lieve, been issued for one reason only, while writs for elections in the other constituencies that were vacant long before York-Sunbury have not yet been issued. The only reason is that York-Sunbury, the Government believe, is the one constituency in which they have the slightest hope of carrying a by-election. The constituency of West York has an electorate of 33,306; St. Antoine 34,794; making a total of 187,501, or in round numbers 200,000 people that today are disfranchised by the action of this Government.
When, Sir, the Act was passed that byelections should be brought on within six months of the vacancies occurring, did any one who discussed or voted for that measure believe for one moment that the whole period of six months was to run? No, the intention was that just as soon as possible writs were to be issued. That was the spirit of the law, and it is in that spirit that I ask the Government to live up to to-day.
This, Sir, is not an ordinary session, this is not an ordinary Parliament. It is, perhaps, one of the most extraordinary Parliaments that ever sat in this Dominion. This feature has been brought up before during this session, and I do not propose to rehash it now, but I have said before, and I repeat it now, that irrespective of all precedent or anything else, there was a distinct promise that at the conclusion of the war this Government would appeal to the country. But, Sir, leaving all that aside, what do we find? We find after reading the statement of the Minister of Railways (Mr. Reid) that we have the most appalling railway deficit in the history of our country-a defiicit of ten dollars for each man, woman and child in Canada. We have before us that most contentious question of the expenditure of millions upon the mercantile marine, a statement in connection with which was made to-day by the Minister of Marine (Mr. Ballantyne). In view of these facts, and of the fact that all constituencies are not represented, can it be said either in this House or out of it that this Parliament has the right to go on with a willy-nilly policy? I say that the only fair thing to do is to let every constituency be represented before these important questions are taken into consideration with a view to making radical changes. Every constituency has the right to be represented, and I ask the Government to see that that right is acceded to.
There is one question I would like to ask of my friends in the far end of the chamber, especially the member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark). I ask it in no spirit of controversy, but the matter is of some interest. The question came up in the House the other day of practically an investigation of the railway systems of Canada. In other words, it was simply this: that the people of Canada, the shareholders in the publicly-owned railroads, should have the right to know whence their money was coming and whither it was going; the right to know how that money was spent and where the vouchers were; the right to speak absolutely as shareholders of a Company. The people who are being taxed for these roads have been denied the right to know whence these moneys came and whither they went. When this question is discussed the hon. member for Red Deer and a number of the other members of his party absolutely vote against any such investigation. Why I know not, but I should like to know. I am asking these hon. gentlemen-for whom the old parties were hardly good enough-
I am asking them in all seriousness-why they take that attitude. The hon. member for Red Deer says that the by-elections should not be brought on except at the will of the Government. In other words he says: We do not want investigation; we do not want representation. It is a nice point; I ask the question out of curiosity. There are many farmers in my constituency and I want to tell them; they are looking for enlightenmen. When the hon. member for Red Deer stands up and in, that vehement manner which is characteristic of him, says in trumpet-like tones to the farmers all over this broad Dominion, says to the members of this House, says, indeed, to every man, woman and child in Canada: We want neither representation nor investigation-I ask the hon. member for Red Deer where he and his party get off?


Michael Clark: Mr. Speaker, may I as a matter of order tell my hon. friend that I get off by saying that I did not say what he says I said?


Samuel William Jacobs: Mr. Speaker, I have been waiting all evening to hear some explanation from the two witnesses to this famous document. As the House is about to have the question put, and nothing has been heard from these two witnesses I merely rise to express my surprise that these gentlemen, whose names have been bandied

about so freely both inside the House and out of it during the last two or three weeks, have not considered it necessary to offer to the House and to the country some explanation as to what became of this document between July 21 and March 18. Sir Herbert Ames on July 21 stated that his resignation was in the Speaker's hands. Some time during this month you, Mr. Speaker, formally stated to the House that the document was not in your hands and that you had not received it, and following that statement the famous resignation was forthwith placed in your hands. Now, where was it during that time? The Prime Minister (Mr. Meighen), who is supposed to know something about the doings of his party, said that he knew nothing whatever concerning it. The Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty) knew nothing about it. No one knew anything about the document. May I suggest that it was perhaps in the dead letter office? It would have been wise if the Postmaster General had been a member of this House in order that he might have said something about that part of his department which is dead.
Another suggestion, Mr. Speaker, I might offer is that when Sir Herbert Ames said his resignation was in the Speaker's hands, possibly he meant that, as he was the speaker, the resignation was in his own hands at the time. The whole matter is enveloped in so much mystery that the chief whip on the Government side, the hon. member for North Grey (Mr. Middle-bro) and the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Whidden) might give us some explanation as to when that document came into their hands and why it was not received by you, Mr. Speaker, until a few days ago. There must have been some reason for it. Were they acting on the instructions of Sir Herbert Ames? They certainly were not acting on the instructions of the right hon. Prime Minister. They were not acting on the instructions of the Minister of Justice, because we have the statements of these two gentlemen that they knew nothing whatever about the document. Were the two gentlemen who witnessed it acting on their own initiative? If so, we would like to know why. Was it in the interests of the country that they were so acting? Was it in the interests of Sir Herbert Ames, or was it in the interests of the Tory party? The country should know something about this. The whole transaction has all the characteristics of a slight-of-hand trick. Sir Herbert Ames states that he placed the document in your hands, Mr. Speaker, but you do not re-.
ceive it; then six or seven months afterwards it is found in the hands of the chief whip of the party.
A word or two has been said to-night with regard to the Bill which I had the honour of introducing into the House a couple of sessions ago and which declared that elections should be held within six months from the vacating of the seat. The Prime Minister seems to think that that law gave the Government discretion; he says: "It is for us to say when we shall have these by-elections; it is for the Government to exercise its discretion." Well, I thought at the time I introduced the Bill that it was for the benefit of the people, not to suit the discretion of the Government, but I must have made a mistake. I was a new member at the time and naturally was deceived by the arts and wiles of the Government. They ought not to have taken advantage of a poor member in that way.
When this measure was originally drafted it provided that the by-election should be held sixty days after the seat was declared vacant. The Bill was sent to the Committee on Privileges and Elections, of which that astute gentleman the Minister of Militia (Mr. Guthrie) was chairman. Hon. gentlemen on the other side, with tears in their eyes, represented to those who were supporting the Bill, that it would be manifestly unfair to force the holding of a by-election within sixty days. I remember that the hon. member for Port Arthur (Mr. Keefer), whom I see before me, made use of that argument. He said: "Take my own district, which runs from somewhere around Lake Superior to Hudson Bay and is as extensive as a large part of Europe; it would be impossible to canvass the electors of that district; it would be almost impossible within sixty days to enable the people to hear the dulcet tones of my voice." The hon. member pointed out that a period of six months was a reasonable time in which everyone could hear him expound his views to the people. He said that it would take at least six months to prepare lists in that wild and unorganized district, the district which sends him to this House. We were soft-hearted people and we fell. We agreed with the hon. member and we thought that after all, half a loaf was better than no bread, and we accepted the six months. It never was contemplated at the time that this period of six months was to be given in order that, as the Prime Minister said, the Government in that time

could exercise its discretion as to when an election should be brought on. If that is the view which he takes, he certainly has distorted what we considered should be the law and were willing to agree to, when the matter came before the House after the committee had reported.
I heartily concur in the views expressed by the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) as to the necessity for bringing on these elections now. It may not suit the convenience of the Government to have these elections brought on; but, as has been said by every hon. member on this side who has spoken in this debate, it is in the interest of the country that the people of these disfranchised constituencies should have a right to have their views expressed on the floor of the House on the highly important matters which are to be brought before us within a very short time. Only a few evenings ago we heard the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster) declare, in the most solemn way, that, with regard to the railway situation, we are facing one of the most important crises in the history of the country since Confederation. Surely, every element of this population, of this community, has a right to be represented in this House when those important matters are to be discussed. I consider that the Government are making a serious tactical blunder when they refuse to allow this resolution to go through. The temper of the people is such that they cannot stand, as the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) said, very much further hocus-pocus business in this House. Their temper is such that they want to have matters fully discussed; they want to know the financial condition of the country, and every constituency be represented in this House at this crucial moment. I for one am very glad to cast my vote in favour of the amendment which has been moved to-night by the leader of the Opposition.


Georges Henri Boivin: I was paired with the hon. member for East Algoma, (Mr. Nicholson). Had I not been so paired, I would have voted for the amendment.


Charles Gavan Power: I was paired with the hon. member for East Hamilton (Mr. Mewburn). Had I not been so paired, I would have voted for the amendment.


Joseph Archambault: (Translation.)
I was paired with the hon. member for North Winnipeg (Mr. Blake). Had I not been so paired, I would have voted for the amendment.
Mr. DENISi (Translation). I was paired with the hon. member for Victoria (Sir Sam Hughes). Had I not been so paired, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. McGREGOR:: I was paired with the hon. member for Maple Creek (Mr. Maharg). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.
Main motion agreed to.

The House in Coriimittee of Supply, Mr. Boivin in the Chair.
Civil Government-Interior-Salaries, including F. Clapp, Acting Secretary to Minister, at $2,400, $1,353,922.50; contingencies, $115,000.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I would ask my right hon. friend if he does not think it is a little early in the morning to begin taking up Estimates.


Arthur Meighen: I do not know how the business of the House is to be done if we are always to have an amendment to the motion for Supply, and then land up too late at night to do any work. It is pretty late to be commencing Estimates, but it is important that the Estimates be considered, and we are getting on very, very slowly.

Although the Government has brought the Estimates on every day for quite a length of time now, we have scarcely anything through.


Frank S. Cahill: May I ask who is the
Minister of the Interior at the present time?


Arthur Meighen: If the hon. gentleman
does not know, it is the Hon. Sir James Lougheed.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I should like again to speak to the Prime Minister. I think it is perfectly proper that matters of general and great public interest should be discussed. We need not necessarily end this session at a particular date as my' right hon. friend has intimated this evening and if there is public business to be carried on we are prepared to stay here in Ottawa for a considerable period of time until it is done satisfactorily, but we do not wish to discuss the business of this country after midnight. We propose to do it at a time when we can give to it all the attention that it demands.


Michael Clark: Some of us are quite a long way from home and want something to do. I have wandered about Ottawa for five days now with little to do. I am an older man than the leader of the Opposition, but I am quite prepared to go on with the business of the House now. I have been in this House when we carried on business continuously day and night. I helped to do it, with the co-operation of my hon. friends. I am sure my hon. friends are not so old that they cannot stay and work for a little while yet.


Jacques Bureau: I do not want to stay
here all night, and I do not propose to stay here all night. If the hon. member for Red Deer does not go home that is his misfortune, not my fault. Apparently he has had a better rest than those who went home. Some go for pleasure and others go for work. I have not the advantage of being a gentleman farmer, and when I go home I have to do something. Let us begin by getting a little information. I notice an increase in this item of $42,250. How is that accounted for?


Mr. TOLMIE :: That is accounted for entirely by statutory increases.


Jacques Bureau: I find by the details on
page 81 that we are providing salaries for assistant deputy, publicity assistant, and custodian of survey equipment. I do not know that there is anything in the statutes

providing for increases for these men. Then there is a senior statistical clerk; statistical clerk, forestry; statistical clerk, natural resources and intelligence. I thought all this work of collecting statistics was transferred to the Department of Trade and Commerce to co-ordinate the work and save money to the country. I should like some explanation.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: These men are engaged
in the compilation of statistics with regard to our natural resources, and they come under the Interior Department.


Jacques Bureau: The $42,250 is made up of increases to those men for the coming year?	*


Simon Fraser Tolmie: Yes, the statutory increases for all these positions.


Jacques Bureau: They are entitled to these increases by statute?


Simon Fraser Tolmie: Yes.


Jacques Bureau: Does that include the
bonus ?


Simon Fraser Tolmie: No.


Mr. SINCLAIR (Guysborough) :: The
item calls for salaries for four editors. What do these four editors edit?


Simon Fraser Tolmie: These editors are connected with the various branches of the department, such as the Astronomical Branch. They edit the publications that are issued by the various branches of the Department of the Interior.


John Howard Sinclair: What publications does the department issue?


Simon Fraser Tolmie: It issues monthly bulletins regarding astronomical questions and other matters that are dealt with. -


Mr. PARENT:: Where are they printed?


Simon Fraser Tolmie: At the Bureau.


Frank S. Cahill: -Is it the intention of the Government again to amalgamate the Department of the Interior and the Department of Immigration and Colonization? It seems that at the time the departments were separated it was a more matter of convenience for the Government to make an appointment, and I should like to know whether it is the intention to amalgamate them again?


Arthur Meighen: The amalgamation has not been considered by the Government. The importance of the Immigration Department is such that it takes considerable time
itself. I would not say that amalgamation may not he possible later on, but it must he remembered that the Mines Department has also been placed under the Minister of the Interior.


Mr. FOURNIER:: Is there any talk
about amalgamating the Department of the Interior and the Customs Department?


Arthur Meighen: Oh no; there is no talk of that. I think the hon. gentleman means the Inland Revenue Department and the Customs. They are being amalgamated.


John Howard Sinclair: I am
not entirely satisfied with the explanation in regard to the editors. My hon. friend told me that these four editors of monthly bulletins were being paid over $9,000 in salaries. Now, in the town in which I live I know an old gentleman of over 70 who issues a paper twice a week all alone. He does the whole work and his paper is a bigger thing than these monthly bulletins. I hope the minister does not mean to say that these gentlemen are working a whole month on these little bulletins.


Arthur Meighen: Perhaps I may be
excused if I say something on this subject, because I have some familiarity with it. The hon. member must not labour under the impression that these are new appointments. These editors have been in the service for many years, I think prior to 1911. The Astronomical Branch, which has charge of the observatories in Ottawa and Victoria, would not be performing its functions as such at all if it did not issue publications recording its achievements and observations, and these publications must necessarily be edited by a man who knows the work of the observatories. I am sure that Dr. Klotz could give the hon. member a more detailed explanation than I can. His staff has been so very much reduced that if the hon. gentleman met him he would listen to a wail of complaints at the parsimony of the Government in not granting more money for his observatories. I do not think there has been any increase; in fact, there has been a reduction. It is, of course, essential to have someone to edit the publication of this branch, and the same is true in regard to the natural resources branch. Its business is to com-; pile into systematic and readable form information as to the natural resources of this country, and well has it performed its task. The head of the branch is Mr. Lynch, one of the ablest of public servants, ap-

pointed long before the Government of Sir Wilfrid went out of office; and without an editor that branch could not do its work. The same can be said of the Geodetic Survey. That is one great survey that is being conducted in the Dominion, and in relation to it all other surveys take their place. It is the primary one, to which other surveys are related and to which they are more or less subsidiary. Necessarily, its work takes the form of publications which must also be edited, and these editors are retained for this purpose.


Charles Gavan Power: I notice on page 82 a
junior law clerk at $1,680, and a senior law clerk-stenographer at $1,500. Now, I have always been aware that I belong to a very poorly paid profession, but I did not think that a kind and benevolent Government such as this could imagine that after having gone through three or four years of study in a law school, any one who qualified for the position of law clerk in the employ of the Government would be worth only something like $100 more than an ordinary stenographer. I do not desire to ask the 'Government to spend more money; they have spent enough, the Lord only knows; but I think it is most unfair to the members of the profession to which I belong, to give them what I might call starvation wages.


Joseph Archambault: What is the
name of the junior clerk?


Charles Gavan Power: Am I to receive an explanation from the minister as to how it is that a barrister receives only $100 or so more than a stenographer? I presume this is a barrister, and it does not seem reasonable.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: These are both stenographers who are familiar with law terms, and this classification is made by the Civil Service Commission.
Mr. POWER. I see that there are really three law clerks, two at $2,040 and one at $1,800. Will the minister explain what their duties and qualifications are, who are the present incumbents, when they were appointed, and from what universities they graduated? I forgot to add that there was a departmental solicitor, and I should like to know something about his qualifications too.


Georges Parent: Is he still alive?


Simon Fraser Tolmie: The duty of these men
is to draw up grazing and mining conveyances and leases in connection with the Department of the Interior, and to do the usual law work appertaining thereto.


Charles Gavan Power: What are their names?


Simon Fraser Tolmie: One of them is Mr. W. McQuarrie; I am sorry I cannot give the other names.


Mr. PROULX:: I know one of these
law clerks, who happened to be one of my classmates at the law school. He has been a lawyer for a number of years and is receiving only $2,040, while I see on page 8 a young lady clerk is receiving $2,400 a year.


Joseph Archambault: She has other
duties to perform.


Edmond Proulx: Was her salary fixed by the Civil Service Commission?


Joseph Archambault: What is her
name?


Edmond Proulx: S. Clapp.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: This young lady has been designated as "Assistant Private Secretary." She had five years experience in Toronto law offices before coming to Ottawa, on February 9, 1917, as secretary to Mr. S. A. Armstrong, formerly assistant Provincial Secretary, Ontario, then Director of the Military Hospitals' Commission, and afterwards Deputy Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment. Miss Clapp was employed in this capacity until Mr. Armstrong left the department in July, 1918, when she was transferred to the minister's office as assistant private secretary. She was thus employed until October, 1920, when upon Sir James Lougheed being appointed Minister of the Interior, she was transferred to the Interior Department. Sir James Lougheed is now minister in charge of the following: Department of the Interior, Department of Indian Affairs, Department of Mines, Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment, Board of Pension Commissioners, Soldiers' Settlement Board and is Government leader in the Senate. The ministers' secretarial work in connection with the foregoing is carried on by two private secretaries and Miss Clapp as assistant private secretary. Miss Clapp's salary as indicated in the Estimates will not carry with it the usual secretarial allowance of $600 or any other allowances. Miss Clapp's transfer does not make any increase in the secretarial staff of the office of the Minister of Interior.


Jacques Bureau: Dispense.


Edmond Proulx: One of these clerks, who has had eighteen years' experience, is only

getting $2,040 while acording to the statement of the minister this young lady, with five years' experience only, is in receipt of $2,400. I do not think that the discrimination is at all fair.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: This young lady is assistant private secretary.


Edmond Proulx: How many secretaries are there to the Minuter of Interior?


Simon Fraser Tolmie: Two private secretaries and one assistant private secretary. But he administers, as I have already pointed out, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Indian Affairs, the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment, the Board of Pension Commissioners, the Soldiers' Settlement Board, and is leader in the Senate.


Mr. CANNON:: A short time ago the minister mentioned that a bulletin was published by the Department of the Interior, which bulletin, if I am not mistaken relates to astronomy. I would like to know from the minister if it is the custom of the department to print that bulletin in both languages? If my information is correct it is not published in French, although the subjects treated of in the bulletin are most interesting and should be published in French and distributed throughout our provinces, a proceeding which would be productive of good results. In making this request I am not asking favour, hut simply asserting a right. The publications by the Department of the Interior are official documents issued under the authority of the Federal Government. Now, as is well known, English and French are official languages and therefore if the Department of the Interior, or any other department, wishes to publish bulletins, or monthly statements of any kind, these publications should be issued in both languages. There is this further reason for pursuing such a course: There are already translators in the department and it would be very easy for the minister to see that in future all publications by the department are printed in both languages. Then the population of my own province, as well as the population of the English provinces, would he able to take advantage of these publications. I think it will be sufficient to draw the attention of the minister to the matter to cause him to see that the present condition of things is immediately remedied.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: Some of the publications issued by the department are now published in French, but I will be very glad to bring what my hon. friend has said to the attention of the Minister of the Interior.


Mr. McCOIG:: There seems to be some discrimination shown in the matter of increases. Some officials are drawing salaries of $4,000, others $3,000, and others again $2,500, or $2,000. These se(em to be the officials who are getting increases whereas the poor fellow who is only paid $1,000 does not appear to be receiving any consideration. It appears to me that the men in humble positions-who have families to raise and clothe and educate just as the higher salaried men have-are entitled to some attention. If increases in stipend are being given, surely those men who receive only $1,000 a year are as much entitled to an increase as are the higher officials who are paid three or four thousand dollars a year?


Simon Fraser Tolmie: The remuneration is not now arranged by the department but by the Civil Service Commission who fix these increases from time to time.


Jacques Bureau: There is a very strange item at page 32 of the Estimates where I notice that salaries are being voted for two senior messengers and also for eight messenger clerks. What work is performed by the clerks of these messengers may I ask?	.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: There are two senior
messengers, one in the Natural Resources Branch, and the other in the deputy's office. "Messenger clerks" is the new designation given by the Civil Service Commission to ordinary messengers.


Jacques Bureau: I think that designation ought to disappear from the Estimates. It may be all right to have senior messengers but why do you want to have messenger clerks for them? With all due respect to the Civil Service (jommission they do not, so far, seem to know very much about the duties entrusted to them.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: These men have to perform the duties of an ordinary messenger, but occasionally they are employed in doing some little office work that does not strictly belong to their duties.


Jacques Bureau: In that case call them messengers, why term them "messenger

clerks"? I move that the word "clerk" be stricken out of the designation.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Mr. PEDLOW:: I notice there is still another grade of messengers and that is "confidential messengers". I would like to know what duties these confidential messengers perform, and why they are so designated?


Simon Fraser Tolmie: The confidential messenger carries cash from one department to another and handles cheques. He has a good deal of responsibility as compared with the ordinary messenger.


Joseph Archambault: The other day when we were considering the Estimates of the Minister of Justice he gave an entirely different definition of a confidential messenger.


Lucien Cannon: But there is no money handled in his department.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: I have explained the
duties of these men in the Department of the Interior. I do not know anything about how they do their work in the Department of Justice.


Lucien Cannon: It appears that salaries are voted for officials who look after the Government lands. I suppose these must be the lands held by the Federal Government in the western provinces. Is it the intention of the Government to come to any decision as to those western lands? I saw in the papers a few months ago that a conference of Western premiers had been held in Ottawa, and I would like to hear from the minister if the matters then discussed have been considered by the Cabinet and any conclusion reached in regard to the natural resources which have been claimed by the western provinces since their creation by the Laurier government fifteen years ago.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: This has been a live
question in the West for many years, and the various provinces have made efforts to secure these Dominion lands. A meeting was held here within the last twelve or eighteen months and the matter was discussed, but up to the present time the Government has reached no definite conclusion in regard to the matter.


Frederick Forsyth Pardee: On page 81 I notice 3 Chief Map Draftsmen, 12 Principal Map Draftsmen, 30 Senior Map Draftsmen, 26 Map Draftsmen, 1 Junior Map Draftsman,

2 Principal Draftsmen, 4 Senior Draftsmen, 6 Draftsmen-86 in all. What are these Chief, Principal and Senior Map Draftsmen?


Simon Fraser Tolmie: These are all classifications made by the Civil Service Commission and cover the making of maps for the Lands Department, the Natural Resources Department, the Mines Department, the Observatories, and the Water Powers branch. The definition of Chief Map Draftsman is: supervising the preparation of sectional, topographical, geological, geographical, and other maps, corresponding with surveyors and others in connection with map preparation. The definition of Principal Draftsman: is supervising the compilation and plotting 6f survey maps and plans from notes, and assisting in the examination and checking of plans submitted by various district engineers and contractors.


Andrew Ross McMaster: Although there is a very considerable increase in these Estimates, the minister in charge of the department has made no suggestion whatever as to the possibility of cutting down expenses. I think the minister who is now endeavouring to pass these Estimates must realize the position in which the country finds itself. It is very hard in a committee such as this to make adequate criticisms of various items; we can only do our best from the information which the mere Estimate places before us. But in view of the present financial situation and of the fact that immigration is proceeding at a very slow rate, surely there should be an opportunity of cutting down expenses in this department. It is quite impossible for any private member to say just what officer should be let out, or just what expense could be curtailed; but we have got to cut our coat according to our cloth, and the only way to reduce the expense of government is by cutting down a little here and a little there. I do not suggest for a moment, Mr. Chairman, that salaries should be cut down, but I want to see better service given. It seems to me that in many offices a smaller personnel could do the work as efficiently, and perhaps more efficiently, than those who are presently engaged there. And that is what we would like to have from the minister,-some plan for cutting down expenses. Of course, it is not quite fair to ask this minister to talk about a department with which, after all, his connection is merely to get the Estimates through this House. His ability and courtesy always impress us, but look at the striking difference between to-night,

when he seeks information from the deputy on every point and has to keep us waiting in answering questions, and the facility with which he answered questions when he was passing his own Estimates. At that time it was a pleasure to ask him questions, for the information, accurate and interesting, simply flowed from him. Now, why have we not a right to have the Minister of the Interior, of this great spending department, in this House to answer for his own Estimates? Could anything be more striking as to the fitness of the stand taken the other day by the hon. member for North Waterloo (Mr. Euler) and other members on this side that these great spending departments should have their ministers sitting in this chamber? That is something which I wish to strongly impress upon the Government. We realize that the minister in his courteous and able manner is doing the best he can with these Estimates, but how can he do justice to the situation when he has to have recourse to 'his deputy and practically read all the information he gives us. And I believe in an eight-hour day. I do not think you will advance the business of the country by insisting on proceeding in the small hours of the morning. However, if it is thought wise to go on, of course we will endeavour to do our duty in this connection. But let me make this suggestion. I have in my hand a pamphlet dealing with adjustment of geodetic triangulation in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, publication No. 2. I presume this pamphlet has been distributed to every member of the House; at any rate, I made no special application for it yet I find it in my box. Now, I defy the minister, who belongs to a learned profession, to make head or tail out of this geodetic triangulation. It is all higher mathematics. The member for North Cape Breton asks me to explain some of the diagrams. I can no more do that than I can talk Gaelic; it is beyond me. My learned and hon. friend from Dorchester suggests that this pamphlet is published with the intention of bringing the two provinces together along geometrical lines. But the point I want to make in all seriousness is that although these pamphlets may be of interest to highly trained technical men, such as surveyors and engineers, to send them broadcast throughout even the House of Commons is a pure waste of public money. These are suggestions which I throw out for the time being, [DOT] and if the minister who is in charge of the department can help us by suggesting how public money can be saved in the conduct of it, we will all gratefully listen to him.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: The pamphlet which the hon. gentleman has just referred to is for the use of surveyors and other professional men. These pamphlets are distributed in the various provinces and exchanged with other countries for similar publications. With regard to running this department in an economical way, I may say, the minister is at present engaged in a general reorganization with a view to effecting a substantial saving. There are no increases other than the statutory increases. He is retiring a number of employees who are getting up in years and he is combining a number of branches with a view to making a saving. I shall be glad to bring to his attention when he returns the fact that this matter was mentioned by the hon. member for Brome.


Lucien Cannon: Can the minister make
such a reorganization- of his personnel without the consent of the Civil Service Commission?


Simon Fraser Tolmie: By the combination of
branches, I think he can move a considerable distance in that direction.


Lucien Cannon: But how far?


Simon Fraser Tolmie: Sufficiently to obtain
very much better results through the combination of staffs in different branches.


Lucien Cannon: I would direct the
attention of the committee to a most extraordinary condition of things. When hon. members ask for information in connection with railways they are told that the information cannot be furnished because the railways are managed by a body independent of the Government. If we turn to the Mercantile Marine we are told that it also is run by a separate corporation and that details and information will be supplied by that corporation and not by the Government. Then, when we put questions in connection with civil employees in other departments we are told that the Civil Service Commission, another body independent of the Government, is responsible, not the Government itself. This is a very serious condition and every hon. member should try to bring about a change. If we are to have responsible government in Canada, members are not to be referred to outside bodies when they ask for information; if so we might just as well abolish the House of Commons. Under our constitution the House of Commons is supposed to have the power of the purse, but I doubt very much whether we have that power. Hundreds of millions are spent every year on our railways and'

hon. members cannot obtain any information in connection with them; the managing body can spend what it likes and the House of Commons has to pay. The same is true of the Mercantile Marine. Now, when we come to the civil service, if there is any body of persons who should be responsible to the representatives of the people it is certainly the civil employees. Even when the Minister of Agriculture was explaining his Estimates he stated on a number of occasions in answer to inquiries from this side:	I cannot give the information; that
matter is settled by the Civil Service Commission. I say that if this system continues, both the power of the purse and responsible government will disappear. The minister ought to be master of his department; if he is not, who is? If the ministers who compose the Cabinet are not masters of their various departments, it is about time we should know who runs this country.


Jacques Bureau: The Civil Service Commission.


Lucien Cannon: Apparently the Civil
Service Commission runs it so far as the Civil Service employees are concerned. The Toronto financiers run it so far as the railways are concerned, and as to who runs the boats we shall know that when the marine Estimates come before the House. The condition which prevails in Ottawa is unbearable, and unless there is protest from both sides of the House-because every member is interested-unless there is a strong and earnest movement to bring about the re-establishment of constitutional institutions in Canada as they existed before the war, we shall wake up and find that we have in this country not responsible government, but autocratic government. It is to be regretted that the head of this department we are now considering, in connection with which such a large amount of public money is spent, is not in the House to furnish the necessary explanations. He is replaced, it is true, by a very sympathetic minister; in fact I think the Minister of Agriculture was chosen purposely because his colleagues know how sympathetic he is to this side. We have confidence in the Minister of Africulture so far as his own department is concerned; we know that every cent we have voted for his department will be well spent. But the moneys which we give to-night, if we give any, will be spent, not by my hon. friend, but by another minister whom we do not know even by sight, for he sits in the Senate. My hon. friend is not in a position .	,
to give to the committee the information which it desires. The member for Brome asked whether it is possible to reduce the expenses of the department. That is a fair question, but the minister cannot answer it because he has not the information. Indeed, he could not do it even if he were the head of the department, because judging from the answer which he has just given he would have to apply to the Civil Service Commission before he could reduce the personnel of the staff.
The minister, in answer to a question which I put in connection with the Dominion lands in the West, told me that the matter was under advisement. That was a very diplomatic answer, but without discussing this question on its merits I would point' out that the financial situation in Canada is very bad. Every hon. gentleman realizes the necessity for a reduction in expenditure with a view to the stabilizing of our financial condition and status. Why should not the Government cease giving vast sums of money to the different provinces for roads, technical schools, .housing schemes, and other different things? Those grants are given, not because the older provinces need them. The older provinces are in a better financial condition than the federal government is. The credit of the province of Quebec is by far higher than that of the Dominion of Canada. Quebec does not need any of these federal credits; we do not want them; let the Government keep the little money they have. Some hon. gentlemen opposite might say: "If the eastern provinces do
1 a.m. not need that money, maybe the western provinces need it." Instead of taking money that we do not possess in the Federal treasury and giving it to the western provinces, why not stop those grants and give to the western provinces their natural resources? They would then have large revenues that would meet their expenditures, and Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta could carry on the government of these provinces without calling on the Federal Government for assistance. This is a very important question. I see some of my western friends in their seats, and we should, to-night, endeavour to secure from the Government a more definite answer on this all-important question of Dominion lands in the western provinces. These remarks are addressed to the minister in entirely good faith. I know he is not in a position to speak with full authority as regards the Department of the Interior; but next to him I see the Minister of Justice

(Mr. Doherty), and I am quite sure that nothing of any great importance would be decided without that right hon. gentleman being consulted, so that if the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Tolmie) cannot furnish the information, I am quite sure the Minister of Justice and the Prime Minister will do so.


Arthur Meighen: I do not know that
the subject of natural resources is connected with the Civil Government Estimates, but I shall be glad to make a short answer to the hon. gentleman. The question of natural resources has occupied the attention of government and of political parties for some time. I have no doubt the hon. member will recall a somewhat celebrated, but, I think, very often lamented convention that was held in the city of Ottawa in August, 1919, at which convention, amongst other resolutions-almost innumerable others-a resolution was passed referring to this very question. That resolution called for the transfer to the western provinces of their natural resources on terms that would be fair to the other provinces of Confederation. With the principle of that resolution, coupled with the condition-I have no fault to find. I might remark though, in passing, that the natural resources were reserved from the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, initially by hon. gentlemen opposite, and the complications that are now involved in any question of the retransfer all arise from the fact that those resources were initially withheld.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Were they not withheld from Manitoba in the same way?


Arthur Meighen: They were withheld
from Manitoba, I forget the year, but shortly after Confederation.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: But on the same principle when the province was created.


Arthur Meighen: The same principle, I
know.


Lucien Cannon: What about the extension of Manitoba?


Arthur Meighen: When the natural resources were withheld from Manitoba and Manitoba requested to be put in the same position as Alberta and Saskatchewan, the same had to apply to the extension of Manitoba; there was nothing else to do. That is what Manitoba asked for; that is what Manitoba received.


John Howard Sinclair: The
reservation was made first for Manitoba,
and my right hon. friend says that we are responsible for Saskatchewan and Alberta. Who was responsible for Manitoba?


Arthur Meighen: The government of the day that made the reservation.


Frank S. Cahill: Who were they?


Arthur Meighen: I am not sure. My statement anyway is correct that hon. gentlemen are responsible in respect of Saskatchewan and Alberta.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Following your
precedent.


John Howard Sinclair: It is the same old tu quoque argument.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman himself was jumping at it a moment ago; he should not despise it now. I am not making anything in the way of a tu quoque argument; I am simply stating the facts and the difficulties in the way of this question. They arise from the fact that the resources were reserved; that they did not pass to the provinces. Whatever the reasons were that moved governments of the day to reserve those resources, the fact is that they were reserved, and that public policy since then has adjusted itself to that situation, public policy in respect of not only subsidies but every policy that appertains to western Canada and, much more, appertains to eastern Canada. Scarcely a step has been taken in regard to administration and the laying out of lines of policy as to the west, that has not been dictated in part by the fact that those resources were reserved. For example, as regards railway policies, under the responsibility of the Federal Government lines of railway were projected, were entered into that probably would not have been entred into, but the fact that the resources were reserved. In respect of water-power, in respect of irrigation, obligations were undertaken that undoubtedly would not have been undertaken but for the fact that such resources were reserved. I could go from one thing to another; all these things have been incurred, and the prooortion of outlay of the federal Government that is attributable to the fact that the resources were reserved is something that it is virtually impossible to ascertain. It is just like attempting, after a long series of years, to go back and under a process that is long and involved. An accounting will not do it; indeed, it is impossible to get at anything that can be said to be an exact return of justice to those provinces and, at the same time, fair



to the others. At every point of the process some difficulty arises that virtually involve the whole question and makes us determine what would have been done if such and such had not been the case, something that no one can, with any certainty, determined at all. Consequently, when a Government, however anxious it may be to solve this problem, to return the resources to the western provinces, sets about to get a solution based upon any principle at all, it is met with difficulties that are almost insurmountable when you take into account the fact that the other provinces must consider the solution fair. Hon. gentlemen opposite have acceded to the principle that a solution cannot be found which does not take into account the fairness that applies to the other provinces that have been parties to the subsidies the West has obtained arising from that reservation. We have attempted time after time to get a solution; we have not succeeded. We are still engaged in the effort, and we are sincerely anxious to obtain a solution. If hon. gentlemen were in power, I think they would be anxious to obtain a solution, but they would meet precisely the same difficulties which we have encountered. I do not think, however, we would find the hon. member for Antigonish and Guysborough (Mr. Sinclair) ready to accede to anything that western Canada would agree to. None of the western provinces has as yet agreed to accept any deduction from its subsidies, got in lieu of lands if the resources are transferred. They take the ground that the resources should be transferred and the subsidies retained, because they maintain that already sufficient resources have been alienated, as they express it, to make up for the subsidies. That is the position of the matter.


John Howard Sinclair: I happened to be a member of the House at the time the western provinces were organized, and I recollect distinctly the discussions that took place on that occasion. The decision that was arrived at was this, that it would not be wise at that stage of the progress of the Dominion to hand over to the western provinces the lands, because the immigration policy was in the hands of the Dominion Government and it was thought that the two should go together, so that when the Dominion Immigration Department found a good settler in Europe and brought him to Canada they should be able to place him on the land without any interference by the local legislatures of these new provinces. The Parliament

of that day arrived at a solution by contributing a larger sum of money to the western provinces. That was regarded as fair by the representatives of the western provinces at that time, so the matter was settled in that way, and that large subsidy has been paid to the western provinces ever since that date. If they claim their lands now, it will be necessary, of course, for them to account for the money that has been paid to them during all these years since the western provinces were organized. That is only fair to the other provinces. I have no desire to inflict any injury on the western provinces; my only desire is to arrive at a fair solution. I should like to know whether my right hon. friend agrees with the decision that was arrived at by the premiers of all the provinces when this matter was dealt with, to the effect that the rights of the other provinces had to be recognized, and that the eastern provinces, as well as the western, have certain rights in this matter. Does my right hon. friend agree with the decision that was arrived at by the premiers of the various provinces? The position that has been taken by my right hon. friend and by some other gentlemen from the West for some years past, as I understand it, has been that the natural resources of the western provinces should be handed over to them now, the western provinces retaining the large subsidies that were given to them in lieu of their resources. Is that his position at the present time?


Arthur Meighen: I do not know to what agreement between the premiers my hon. friend refers. I would be very much surprised if he can find what was agreed on by the premiers of the provinces of Canada.


John Howard Sinclair: My
right hon. friend quoted it a moment ago. He said that it was to be done with regard to the rights of the other provinces.


Arthur Meighen: I will refer to that in a moment. I understood the hon. gentleman to say that the premiers of the different provinces had come to some agreement in respect to this matter. If they have, I would be delighted to be informed of what it was. I do not think they ever agreed on anything, and I may possibly be permitted to express despair that they ever will. The hon. member says that if the western provinces get their resources, they must account for the moneys they have received ever since these subsidies were granted in lieu of resources. I under-

stand him to mean that they should pay that money back. I want to tell him right now there is not one Government of the three Prairie Provinces that would consider that for one moment. They have never agreed as yet, even to a deduction in any degree whatsoever from the subsidies payable in future in lieu of lands. I communicated with the premiers of all the provinces by letter, prior to our last conference, and told them that if any substantial progress was to be made they should let us know what they were ready to do. Were they ready to accept a deduction in subsidy in lieu of lands, or were they ready to wipe it out? I got no affirmative answer. They take this ground now. They say: You were trustees for us for these lands. Now we ask you to account for everything you have got, and not only everything you have got, but for everything you should have got; if you had a piece of land homesteaded, for instance, instead of selling it, you should pay us the amount you could have sold it for. You account to us as trustees, and we will account to you for the subsidies received. I pointed out that at every stage of the accounting the whole question would come into view at once as to what appropriations of this Parliament were made because the lands were reserved to us, and what were not. I do not think the wit of man could ever tell that. In respect to immigration, for instance, could it be told? Are you going to ascribe all the expenditure this Government has been put to for immigration in all these years to the fact that these lands were reserved, and reserved for immigration purposes? I do not think you should. It is true some of it was, but can any human being tell how much was? I do not think so. Nor could any human being tell what money was spent by this Government in respect of railways, in respect of water-powers, in respect of irrigation, in respect of many of these subjects arising from that fact. It could not be done by any process of accounting. You might make some rough attempt at a conclusion, but that is all it would be. I have urged upon the premiers of the different provinces that they should be ready to say just what they would be ready to do in respect to a deduction of the subsidy. If they are not prepared to accept any deduction at all, let them say so, and then we will say whether we consider it fair or not; but they have made no 851
statement in that regard. That is the position at the present time.


Mr. GOULD:: I should like to say a word or two on the question of natural resources, since it has come up. I recollect quite distinctly in the year 1905, members of the then Federal Government coming into our province to endeavour to persuade the electors that the subsidies to be granted to the provinces in lieu of our natural resources was the best thing that could happen to the provinces. Now, I am not yet prepared to admit that the electorate of the Province of Saskatchewan really believed the statements that were made to them at that time, although perhaps the vote in the elections might show that they did. I myself took the view at that time, as I do to-day, that the natural resources of the province of Saskatchewan rightly belonged to the province. While under that influence we accepted the subsidy, the question has always been a very live one in the West and we have made repeated requests to different Governments and Oppositions that our natural resources be given back to us. I was one of a committee of three that waited upon the leader of the Opposition in the year 1911 in the city of Weyburn, and when we made the request that the natural resources should be handed over to the province we received the very positive statement that immediately upon the accession to office of the Conservative party of that time our natural resources would be handed to us. We accepted that statement in good faith, but as soon as the party got into power other considerations entered in, and obstacles were raised. Up to the present time I do not know that there has been as much earnestness shown by the Federal Government as has been shown by the provincial governments in an effort to get what we claim is simple justice.
I do not wish at this time to discuss the natural resources, as the subject is somewhat foreign to the question before us, but I think a resolution on the subject should be brought into the House later on. Representatives of our group will have something to say on that question.
I wish to endorse what has been said by the hon. member for Dorchester as to the minister who is in charge of these Estimates not being in a position to make the positive statements that I believe the House should have. It is deplorable, from my

point of view at least, that we should ask for information and be unable to receive a positive declaration from the minister giving us the precise facts asked for. When his own Estimates were before the House he could give us positive and reassuring statements, but to-night, in answer to questions by hon. gentlemen, all he can say is "I think this" and "I think that," which I submit must be absolutely unsatisfactory to all hon. members Who listen to the minister. I am sure that the minister himself must feel that in those circumstances he is handicapped in his efforts to give to the House such information as it has a right to expect. I do not know what to suggest in order to improve things, but I do think that almost any condition would be as good as the present. A large amount of money is being expended in this department, and I am sure the tax payers will demand some positive answers to the questions that are asked by hon. members. The older members of the House can perhaps suggest ways and means whereby we may be able to obtain the information we require. Personally, I think that it is certainly due to hon. members that definite answers should be made in reply to such queries as they put to the Government, and I do seriously submit that the present state of affairs is not satisfactory.


Jacques Bureau: This is a large item
and, as has been said, the Government has chosen for the purpose of putting it through an hon. gentleman who enjoys the greatest degree of sympathy on our side. Now, we are willing to show our sympathy by meeting him half way, and if it is agreed that we shall adjourn after the passage of this item, we will let it pass.


Charles Gavan Power: No.


Jacques Bureau: We can let this item
pass if the Government agrees to adjourn.


Arthur Meighen: I should really like to
have another department, that of Labour, entered upon, but I am prepared to accept the terms of the hon. member. We should surely get some more business done another night, however, and I sincerely trust that if another amendment comes on we shall be able to confine the debate thereon within reasonable limits.


Frank S. Cahill: I desire some information regarding the regulations appertaining to oil leases, which, I understand, are under the department. As these items are going through we find, from time to time, that it is impossible to go back in 
order to obtain information on subjects that have already been disposed of. The leader of the Government sometimes evinces a denseness in comprehending some remarks of hon. members on this side, and it is possible that when we come to some other item that may be in this department, we will find it convenient to press the Chairman to restrict the members on this side to the subject immediately under consideration. Now, there has been a great change in the regulations concerning oil leases in western Canada. The minister in charge of these Estimates may not be as familiar with the regulations as is the Prime Minister, who was previously in charge of this department. Will the right hon. gentleman inform me what led to the conclusion that the leases should not be allowed in future', as in the past, for prospectors to locate on Dominion lands with a view to prospecting for oil in Northern Alberta, oi British Columbia, or elsewhere? I do not know whether there is any other item in these Estimates that might afford an opportunity for putting this question, and I am anxious to have this information, because the matter is of considerable importance to the people of western Canada at the present time.


Arthur Meighen: There is no doubt as
to the importance of the subject. The hon. member could undoubtedly bring up the discussion in several ways. He could introduce it under the item for Dominion Lands and Parks. That would be the proper item under which to discuss it, but of course it could not be taken up to-night; or he could have brought it up on a motion made some little time ago by the member for East Edmonton (Mr. Mackie), which was debated at some length; or on two or three other motions which are still on the Order Paper, if they are not disposed of, by the same hon. member. In the debate on the motion of the hon. member for West Edmonton (Mr. Griesbach), I went into the subject in some detail. I have no doubt the hon. member for Pontiac (Mr. Cahill) was not here-


Frank S. Cahill: Yes, I was, but no specific answer was given.


Arthur Meighen: Oh my, yes; I gave a
rather complete answer as to why the leases were changed.


An hon. MEMBER:: What was it?


Arthur Meighen: I am afraid I cannot give as complete a statement to-night as I gave on that occasion. At that time I had a memorandum on the subject. However,

I can give a little information regarding the matter. In the first place, I do not think there has been any material change in respect to the provinces my hon. friend refers to, that is, in respect to Dominion lands in Alberta, the Peace River belt, and the railway belt-the only parts we control -and Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Prom the best of my recollection, the only changes there, are in regard to the imposition of royalty, which it was thought was justified in the public interest, in order that the people as a whole might get some share of these resources, which are the property of the people of Canada. But there was a pretty substantial change in regard to the North West Territories lands, for the reason that it was felt that after the Fort Norman discovery, that field could be legitimately regarded, not as one for prospectors only, but as a proven field, where the existence of oil in quantity had been established, and consequently it was considered that the regulations should be altered so as to give that protection to the public interest that was justified, after the time of experiment had passed and the time of actually proven field had come. That is the reason for the change. It was felt that as oil in quantity had actually been discovered, it was not unjust that we should change the regulations so as to bring a larger share of the ultimate result, to the treasury. Consequently, it was provided that only one section in four should be finally taken by the locator, the other three reverting to the Crown, and also that the royalties therein provided for, should be reserved to the Crown. Now, I have given the hon. gentleman the reasons. The matter is under consideration to-day. You may go so far in restrictions as to discourage exploitation, and it is under consideration whether or not some fair priority right to the other three sections, 640 acres, might not in fairness be reserved to the man whose courage and venture are responsible for the location of the first section. That is under consideration; I cannot intimate whether it shall be done or not. Now, I have stated concisely the reason why the change was made in these regulations; it was because of a change in circumstances. The field passes from one fit only for a prospector in the hope "that oil might be found, to a field where oil has been found, or what is known as a proven field.


Frank S. Cahill: Have the regulations,
since the passing of that Order in Council,
been strictly lived up to, or have any filings been allowed since then?


Arthur Meighen: So far as I know, they have been strictly lived up to. The Order as first passed had, I think, a certain retroactive effect which was afterwards removed. I am not sure that I can give the exact date or the circumstances. There were certain applications for leases which would have to be denied under the regulations as first passed, and on representations made by very many it was felt that that was unjust, and the retroactive effect was removed. Every regulation has been lived up to, so far as I am aware, and I would be very much surprised if the Minister of the Interior did not insist that they be lived up to.


Frank S. Cahill: I understood the Prime
Minister to say that a man was now permitted to take in one whole section, whereas previously he could take in a tract not exceeding in all nineteen hundred and forty acres.


Arthur Meighen: Nineteen hundred and twenty acres.


Frank S. Cahill: Was that the regulation
and is it still in force?


Arthur Meighen: I cannot say just how he was allowed to take it. Previously he was allowed to have 1920 acres, but now he can only have 640 under the regulations as they stand in the Territories. I explained in detail the other day how the area might be taken out. I think I can recall the explanation and it is this:	He
can take out as much as four sections, or 2,560 acres, in four rectangular blocks. That is, he can file upon four restangular blocks aggregating not more than 2,560 acres, but within a certain period after he has had time to determine what he wants, if he has paid rent on the whole thing for one year, he then must select a square block containing not more than 640 acres, and in respect of that alone he gets a lease, that is all he is entitled to. At present it is under consideration whether he should not have the same right to the remaining three-quarters, in priority to others who may come after him and share the advantage of the risk that he ran.


Frank S. Cahill: Could the Prime Minister tell us what extent of land was leased on the retroactive policy as enunciated by him? He says that there were some people who had made claims to leases, and that they were allowed a retroactive right.


Arthur Meighen: I could not give the
number of applications or the extent of lands to which they referred. I did hear the figures hut could not now recall them. I think there were quite a number.


Frank S. Cahill: Could the Prime Minister give the names of the people who made these applications?


Arthur Meighen: I do not think I could
give the name of a single applicant.


Frank S. Cahill: Could the Prime Minister tell me whether a General Lindsay secured any lands under that arrangement?


Arthur Meighen: I could not tell my
hon. friend definitely, but I do not think so. The hon. gentleman's reference to General Lindsay must be in regard to another incident altogether.


Frank S. Cahill: That may or may not be the case.


Arthur Meighen: If it is not then I
do not know anything about it. I do not think General Lindsay had any oil lands at all. So far as I know he had none except to this extent: he had a lease, made while I was Minister of the Interior, in respect of a certain area of land upon which he had the right to perform certain experiments in order to discover whether or not oil could be commercially produced from th oil sands. That is what General Lindsay got. I remember revising that lease over and over again after it was submitted to me by the officers of the department, and it finally went through. Whether General Lindsay has made much progress or not in his experiments I do not know, but I sincerely hope he has. So far as I know, or have ever heard, General Lindsay took out no leases of oil lands beyond what this particular contract made with the department gave him a right to have.


Frank S. Cahill: When was that arrangement of which the Prime Minister speaks made with General Lindsay?


Arthur Meighen: I will have to speak from recollection purely. I think it was about the spring of last year. I left the department in July and the arrangement was made, I would think, within six months of the time I left and at least three months before.


Charles Gavan Power: On page 81 I notice that mention is made of a gentleman who holds a very lowly position, having regard to the salary paid him. He gets a salary of

$1,000 and occupies the position of cabinet maker. I would have suggested to the Prime Minister that when he left the Department of the Interior he should have brought his cabinet maker with him, or rather have brought a Cabinet reconstructor. Had he done that it would have saved him a great deal of the difficulty which, I understand, he has experienced since he became Prime Minister. Had he brought with him a gentleman learned in the art of cabinet making when he succeeded to the position of Prime Minister I have no doubt he would have succeeded better and would not have to encounter the serious difficulties which confront him at present. All that by way of coming to the question as to what the cabinet maker does in the department. What are the duties of this cabinet maker, and what has he got to do with Dominion lands?


Simon Fraser Tolmie: The cabinet maker in the Department of the Interior repairs furniture. He also makes boxes for shipping or moving specimens about from one place to another, and is a general handy man in any work around the department that requires the use of tools.


Charles Gavan Power: May I ask the Minister whether the department has at its disposal the miniature natural resources cabinets "which formerly were distributed to schools of a certain grade-cabinets filled, I think with specimens of the different minerals of the country? If so, I would like to know if these cabinets can now be obtained from the department?


Simon Fraser Tolmie: There are none in the
Department of the Interior, but they may still be issuing them in connection with the Mines Branch. I will get that information for my hon. friend when we take up the Estimates of that branch.


Georges Parent: I am sorry that at this late hour we are obliged to let the item pass without having full information in regard to a good many details. For instance, I notice that on page 80 of the Estimates reference is made to an International Boundary Commissioner and a Surveyor General. I would like to find out whether the duties of the two gentleman are identical or not? I would also like to ascertain whether the Surveyor General has drawn a line showing the boundary between Labrador and the Province of Quebec, and what lands are possessed by Newfound-

land and the Province of Quebec, repesct-ively, in the Ungava district?


Arthur Meighen: The Surveyor General and the International Boundary Commissioner are by no means the same man. The Surveyor General is Doctor Deville and the Boundary Commissioner is Mr. J. J. McCarthy. That is the answer to the hon. gentleman's first question. In reply to his next question as to the work of the International Boundary Commission, I understand all that the commission has to do is simply complete the preparation of the reports. The work has been tapering off for some time and, I believe, is now complete. As to whether the Surveyor General has delimited the boundary between Newfoundland and Canada on the Labrador cCast, I have no doubt that that boundary is laid out in the main and can be located all right as it is placed by Canada. It should be located by Canada and the province of Quebec. The location, I believe, is now under way, though it has never been actually brought, to a head. I have always felt that the province of Quebec is chiefly concerned in this matter, and that when it is brought to a head the province of Quebec and the Dominion should be specially represented by counsel. I do not know just what is delaying the matter now, but I am quite certain that if at any time the province of Quebec wishes to go ahead their wishes will be very carefully, and probably sympathetically, considered.


Isaac Ellis Pedlow: I find that out of 822
employees in this department there are 524 clerks and clerk stenographers. I see there are 339 clerks and 185 stenographers, or 524 out of a total of 822 employees in this department.'' What class of work are these clerks and stenographers doing, and are they fully employed all the time? If they are not fully employed, is it the intention to reduce the staff and cut down expenses?


Simon Fraser Tolmie: These clerks are all fully engaged in the various departments, such as the mines department, the lands department, the natural resources branch, the mines branch, the observatories and the waterways. It is the intention of the minister to reorganize the various branches and to economize. He is already combining certain branches to lessen the staff; and while the Civil Service Commission makes the appointments and fixes the salaries, he has the right to dismiss any of his staff for whom he has no woi'k. With the exception of the
statutory increases this year, there has been no increase in this department.


Lucien Cannon: I see there is a small
vote for the Commissioner of Dominion Parks. If my memory serves me right the Prime Minister last year introduced legislation concerning our Dominion parks. Have any new parks been formed under this law; if so, where?


Arthur Meighen: I am informed that no new parks have been constituted. The Commissioner of Dominion Parks is Mr. Harkin, a very old public servant. I do not know that I have quite in mind the legislation the hon member refers to. Was it an Act providing for the creation of new parks?


Lucien Cannon: It was passed two years ago if I am not mistaken.


Arthur Meighen: I remember something was done as to Point Pelee shortly afterwards. I have before me a list of all the parks: Rocky Mountains park, Yoho park, Glacier park, Revelstoke park, Kootenay park, Jasper park, Waterton lakes, St. Lawrence islands, Broder park-this park was created in 1919-Buffalo park, Elk island, Foremost Antelope reserve, Fort Howe, Fort Anne, Port Pelly park reserve, Point Pelee. Two of those parks have been created since the passing of the Act referred to by the hon. member.


Georges Parent: What are the duties of
the superintendent of the Natural Resources Intelligence department?


Arthur Meighen: That gentleman is Mr. Lynch, to whom I referred some time ago. The Natural Resources Intelligence department collects and distributes intelligence respecting the natural resources of Canada.


Frank S. Cahill: I noticed in the press a
few days ago that two townships were to be taken out of the Riding Mountain park in the Dauphin district. My recollection is that that is a rolling country of a more or less sandy nature, and a few years ago it would not have been considered as at all fit for settlement. Are these lands of first class quality? What was the report of the surveyor general when he originally surveyed these lands?


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman is
quite right as to the Riding Mountain park being rolling country and generally light as to soil. The Government was urged, according to my recollection solely by returned men, to open certain parts of that park that were suitable for farming. The Parks

branch usually resists anything being taken out of the parks, and the Forestry branch almost invariably resists. Consequently a survey, was made by officers jointly, and as a result of that survey very small areas were authorized by Parliament to be taken out. I think that only part of what was authorized was taken out. The amount found fit for cultivation was relatively very small indeed.


Frank S. Cahill: The newspaper report
mentioned two townships. I would think it would be impossible to get that area of good land in the Riding Mountain park. What was the area taken out, and was it taken in consecutive sections?


Arthur Meighen: The exact area taken out can be obtained, and I will secure the information. I know, speaking from memory, there was nothing like two townships taken out, and I think the newspaper report must be in error in that regard. I think there were isolated pieces taken at three or four different points.


Frank S. Cahill: The newspaper report
may have been in error.


Arthur Meighen: It may have been right, but I do not think so.


Frank S. Cahill: I am quite willing to accept the Prime Minister's word as to that. I always accept his statements here when I have to. But I am not asking now for what may be nearly accurate, but for accurate information from the department, and I do not think the Prime Minister will attempt to argue that such a request is unfair. I presume that these sections or quarter sections of land were at least on the fringe of the reserve. I hope it has not been the custom of the department to go in and select portions of land in the interior of the reserve for settlers to take up. I do not think the minister could expect members of the Opposition to quietly sit down and allow the Government to dispose of all the parks without asking some questions, nor do I think that he should resent the asking of questions about any of our parks. Certainly the minister in charge of the Estimates should have information about this transaction. I think that he should be in a position to state what portions have been taken and under what conditions they have been taken-whether or not the land has been passed as good agricultural land. I can understand that there are Indian reserves and park reserves adjacent to settlement, in some cases close to railways, that a settler would take in preference to better land in a district furf -Ur. MeighenJ
ther away from settlement or from railways, but whether it would be good business to allow such lands to be taken up simply because of their more desirable location is another question and a question for the Government to answer. If those lands are not first-class farm lands it is a question open to debate whether the Government should allow them to be settled on. The Minister of Agriculture had the experience in Kapuskasing in Northern Ontario of settling people on land where they could make no headway, and the Ontario Government has since taken them out of there. A similar condition might arise with respect to settlements on the western lands controlled by the Government. Unless the land will provide a living for the returned soldier, he should not be allowed to settle on it. I would like from the minister in charge of the Estimates a report of the surveyors-not only the recent report but the original report, because these lands were originally surveyed some forty years ago and in each case the Surveyor-General made an accurate report of the condition of the land. Is the minister prepared to take the responsibility of placing returned soldiers on this land whether they are experienced men or not?


Arthur Meighen: The Act stipulated the land that was authorized to be taken out. When the Act was passed full information was given to the House as to why it was passed and as to the reports upon which it was based. I do not know whether or not all that was authorized to be taken out was taken out or what the area was; no minister and no officer would carry that in his head. I have said to the hon. member that the exact area will be given to him while these Estimates are before the committee.	-


Frank S. Cahill: The Prime Minister seems to imply that every member on this side should know of all legislation and every Order in Council that is passed and of everything that takes place in this House. It has been the custom for the Government to state each evening what business will be taken up in the House the next day. At the last sitting the Prime Minister said that certain Estimates would be brought up, and members who were not interested in those two items-perhaps I should say "departments", because the right hon. gentleman called me to order the other day for using the word "item" instead of "department"-members of the Opposition who were not particularly interested in the

departments which were to be taken up might not think it necessary to be in their places in the House. After giving us his assurance that two specific departments would be taken up, the Prime Minister came down to-day and moved to go into supply on an entirely different department. I thought I heard the Minister of Marine make a statement to the House today, and I thought I heard a letter read from the Prime Minister to the leader of the Opposition stating that the Minister of Marine wished to make a statement. During the discussion on that statement it was impossible for members of the Opposition to know whether it was the intention to go into the Marine Estimates or not; of course, if you went into the matter when the Estimates were up, the chairman would very properly tell you that you should not object to the principle of the Merchant Marine while any single item was being dealt with. If the Prime Minister will continue the practice which, I understand, has been in vogue for many years, of giving information in a straightforward way so that members of the Opposition shall have an intimation of what to expect on the following day, he will, perhaps, find not quite so much opposition to some of the things which he wishes to do. All hon. members on this side, I am sure, are quite anxious to oppose most of the measures of the Government because their measures as a rule are opposed to the principles of Liberalism. But there are some members on this side-I am not speaking for myself now-who have no desire to obstruct legislation or to obstruct Estimates, and if the minister in charge wishes to make such fine distinctions between words and terms and thinks that he is going to make any headway by criticising and lecturing members of the Opposition every time they ask for information, I think he will find that he is heading toward the bottom of the well, not toward the top.


Arthur Meighen: What I stated to the House in answer to the leader of the Opposition was that we would take up the departments of Labour and Interior, and that immediately on getting into supply we would take up the Department of the Interior. That constitutes an answer to the hon. member. He refers to some lecturing that has been done from this side; I do not know who did it. I plead not guilty on behalf of all concerned.


Frank S. Cahill: I accept the Prime Minister's explanation, of course. He stated that the Department of the Interior would be taken up, but what better intimation could we hiave of what department is to be taken up than in the fact that a certain minister makes the motion to go into Supply or speaks to the motion when it is made? It has been the custom, at least since I have been here, for the minister to make a general statement regarding his department on a motion to go into Supply. If the .Minister of Marine wished to make that statement-


Georges Henri Boivin: I regret that I must call the hon. member to order. His remarks are certainly not relevant to the item before the committee. We cannot, without having a point of order before the Chair, enter into a discussion of customs and procedure and continue that discussion during the entire evening.


Georges Parent: How long has the present minister been in charge of the department; since he has been in charge how many employees have been dismissed from the department, and what are the names of those who have dismissed?


Arthur Meighen: The minister has been in charge since July 10, 1920. There have been two or three dismissals. Several have been retired under the statute passed by the House and given the gratuity or allowance provided by the statute. That has been done in the interest of economy. If the hon. member wishes to have the names, I will secure them and give them to him while the estimates of this department are under consideration.


Georges Parent: I would imagine that the official in front of the Prime Minister would be able to furnish the information now.


Arthur Meighen: He informs me that he has not the information here.'


Georges Parent: What are the duties of the director of water-powers, and in what part or parts of Canada 'does he carry out those duties?


Arthur Meighen: His name is Mr. J. B.
Challies. He performs services in all parts of Canada, directly in the provinces where the resources are the property of the Dominion, through the Governments of the other provinces where the resources are not the the property of the Dominion. Arrangements have been made, I know, with New

Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Ontario, and, I am informed, with Quebec. The services of that branch, which is under the charge of Mr. Challies, are in that way for the purposes of getting information for the use of the water-powers of all the provinces. If the hon. member will consult the Government of his province, he will find they are highly appreciative of the assistance given by that branch.


Georges Parent: According to the statement of the Prime Minister, the director of waterpowers has something to do with the province of Quebec, and he led us to understand that the Dominion Government and the Provincial Government had come to some understanding as to the duties of that man in Quebec. The statement of the right hon. gentleman may be correct; I would like to take it as such; if it is, we are entitled to more details so as to find out what has taken place between the Federal Government and the Government of Quebec as regards the director of waterpowers.


Arthur Meighen: I am informed by the
official who is in front of me that they have been doing work in Quebec, although I cannot recollect it myself. I recollect agreements with Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. I have letters from at least one or two of the members of those Governments appreciative of the work done. I do not know that any difficulty has arisen with respect to the Quebec Government. It may be that the information given to me is not correct. I have a recollection myself of negotiations with the Government of Quebec; but I will get the full details for the hon'. gentleman, and when this matter comes up under the appropriation for Dominion lands and parks, which we are not taking up now, Mr. Challies will be present himself.


Georges Parent: It comes under the director of waterpowers.


Arthur Meighen: That is just the salary of the director, but all information as to what he does and his branch does in the various provinces properly comes under the appropriation for Dominion lands and parks. Mr. Challies will be available and the very fullest information can be given.


Charles Gavan Power: I should like to obtain
a great deal of information with regard to the director of forestry and details of what has been done by this department for forestry. I should like, if, at some future time when these Estimates are before the House, I might be allowed to discuss the

question of forestry, to call the Government's attention to the fact that in the eastern provinces a large number of big trees are being destroyed by bud-worms and other worms and to point out that it is the duty of the federal Government to help the provincial governments to overcome these pests. It is true the hon. member for Dorchester (Mr. Can-2 a.m. non) says that the provinces do not need the federal Government money; but in this respect at any rate, I contend that the forests of our country are of such paramount importance that the federal Government should assist in every possible way to look after their conservation and preservation. I should like also, at the time that these other Estimates are brought up, to go into the question with the minister of what body is taking the place of the Commission of Conservation with regard, for instance, to losses that might be occasioned in our forests by fire. All this, I am led to understand, subject, of course, to correction, could be gone into when other items under this department are before the House.
I should like, on my own behalf, to make this statement to the Prime Minister, that I think really we should begin our sittings about eight o'clock every evening. I notice that, as time goes on, as the hour grows later, the Prime Minister becomes more sweet tempered. This evening, and particularly in the last two hours, he has given us a remarkable example of how courteous and well disposed he can be. I would hope that the Prime Minister would be always so well disposed to give us information.
I am sure, if such were the case, we on this side of the House would be able to assist him, as we have assisted him tonight, in laying the details of the various departments before the House and the country. Really, in the future, if the Prime Minister would show the same disposition and magnanimity which he has shown to-night, we would have reciprocal arrangements of some kind whereby the business of the House would be greatly facilitated.


Frank S. Cahill: Will it be possible for
the minister at some other date to take up the question of the policy of the Government with regard to homesteads? I mentioned this matter to the minister before, and at that time he seemed to intimate that the Government might institute a different policy with regard to homesteads; that is, they might adopt a policy of restricting homesteading to what might be

regarded as the railway area of the country and not allow settlers to take up homesteads in the more remote parts of Canada where they would have no chance of railway facilities and where, in a great many cases, they would be only taking hardships on themselves without being of any productive value to the country generally. Has any new policy been adopted by the Government, or has the Government considered the advisability of restricting homestead settlement to what might be regarded as the railway area of the country?


Arthur Meighen: No new policy has
been adopted, nor has a change been under the general consideration of the Government. The subject has been pretty fully discussed in the House on other occasions. 'There is a great deal to be said both ways; there is a great deal to be said in favour of doing away with homesteads altogether, but the Government has not come to that conclusion as yet. An opportunity for a discussion of the question, of course, will come on any of the remaining items, at least when those involving grants for Dominion lands are under review.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Some hon. MEMBERS:: Report progress.


Arthur Meighen: An hour has gone by since the suggestion was made by the hon. member for Three Rivers that if the item passed we would take up no other item and go into no other department. However, on this occasion I shall not press the point, but on another occasion when the hon. member for Three Rivers or any other member comes to an understanding I think it would be well that it be lived up to or that the Government feel themselves free to take such procedure as they may deem advisable.


Mr. MURPHY:: I think we would make greater progress if the Committee rose now.
Progress reported.
On the motion of Right Hon. Mr. Meighen,. the House adjourned at 2.12 a.m.
Wednesday.
Wednesday, March 30, 1921.